#6 of the "What is knowledge" series - Reason as a way of knowing

Reason has held a place of pride as one of the 'supreme' ways of knowing. We describe ourselves as rational animals. Did I hear you chuckle?

Here is a thought salvo dear reader. How do you distinguish between "rational' thought and 'empirical" thought?

Rational is what I call 'armchair thinking, reasoning and logic'. Empirical thought is 'looking, perceiving and making observations - like experiments'.

To simplify you could say Math is rational and science is empirical. Not an accurate statement but illustrative.

Can these merge, coalesce, be interdependent? Yes, of course. Einstein's theory of relativity was through a thought experiment of a painter falling to the ground from a tower and rationalizing how he felt gravity. However, the idea of bending of the fabric of space-time near a massive body was empirically tested to validate the rationality of the theory.

Humans declare that we possess a quality of mind that is unmatched versus other species. We cannot even conceive that other animals can be rational.

Reasoning can also be deductive or inductive. How do they differ?

Only deductive reasoning can be called rational - it is a demonstration of reasons that can be linked to a conclusion.

What about logic? If we believe in rationality, then we should be cheerleaders for logic?

How about this example of syllogism (Not original. Credits at the end of the article):

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man

Socrates is mortal

The conclusion of this logic is that it is valid logic and there is no inconsistency in the premise.

Not let us flip these a bit:

All men are mortal

Socrates is a mortal

Socrates is a man

Here there is a flaw in the logic and the conclusion is valid. Why? If Socrates is the name of my cat this would still hold true, and we know the cat is not a man.

So, there are a number of charlatans posing as flowing beard gurus with elaborate costumes who will use logic to hold reason. Be careful, very careful. An example:

Cow is a sacred animal for Hindus True proposition

Cow urine contains germicides True proposition

Hindus should drink cow urine for health False proposition

While the second proposition is true, but it does not contain any more germicides that human urine and certainly not enough the benefit your health.

Let us conclude by clarifying what inductive reasoning is. It is our generalizations, or inferences, drawn from our experiences that we use to make a mental map of the world. For example, we observe that all swans are white. We see this every time. When we see a black swan, we tend to extend our reasoning to - that it is not a swan. So inductive reasoning is prone to fallacy but useful to have a general mind-map of the world.

My favorite inductive reasoning fallacy at the moment is: All AI platforms are being developed in the Silicon Valley. Meta, Gemini, Copilot/Open AI have been born in the Silicon Valley. All cutting-edge tech innovation happens there. In short, all swans are white.

Enter Deepseek from China. That is the 'black swan moment' for us.

I really enjoyed writing this and I hope dear readers that you liked it too. A word of appreciation, a comment or question validates that this made you think. Do that please.

Acknowledgements: Socrates, Bertrand Russel, Gautam Buddha.