REASONING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Reasoning

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/rˈizənɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Reasoning n.

1.

The act or process of adducing a reason or reasons; manner of presenting one's reasons.

2.

That which is offered in argument; proofs or reasons when arranged and developed; course of argument. "His reasoning was sufficiently profound."

Synonyms: Argumentation; argument. Reasoning, Argumentation. Few words are more interchanged than these; and yet, technically, there is a difference between them. Reasoning is the broader term, including both deduction and induction. Argumentation denotes simply the former, and descends from the whole to some included part; while reasoning embraces also the latter, and ascends from the parts to a whole. See Induction. Reasoning is occupied with ideas and their relations; argumentation has to do with the forms of logic. A thesis is set down: you attack, I defend it; you insist, I reply; you deny, I prove; you distinguish, I destroy your distinctions; my replies balance or overturn your objections. Such is argumentation. It supposes that there are two sides, and that both agree to the same rules. Reasoning, on the other hand, is often a natural process, by which we form, from the general analogy of nature, or special presumptions in the case, conclusions which have greater or less degrees of force, and which may be strengthened or weakened by subsequent experience.

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Etymology of 'Reasoning'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Reasoning" Quotes from Famous Books

... not perfectly at ease amid the conflicts of the day, Godwin soon perceived, and by this time he had clear assurance that Martin would willingly thrash out the whole debate with anyone who seemed capable of supporting orthodox tenets by reasoning not unacceptable to a man of broad views. The negativist of course assumed from the first that Martin, however respectable his knowledge, was far from possessing the scientific mind, and each conversation had supplied him with proofs of this defect; it was not at all in the modern ...

— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... intolerant of the wise looks and book-inspired remarks of the would-be authorities in the regiment. To his cavalry nature the horse had an affiliation that was simply strong as a friendship. Nothing could shake Ray's conviction in the reasoning powers, the love, loyalty, gratitude, and devotion of the animal that from his babyhood he had looked upon as a companion,—almost as a confidant. He had little faith in Mrs. Turner's voluble admiration of Dandy. To use his Blue Grass vernacular, he "didn't take ...

— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... Reade admitted. "The unknowns might hardly expect us to show as much human reasoning power as all that. Yet I'm of the opinion that we'll continue to rest badly at night as long as we continue to feel any unhealthy curiosity about the lake mystery. In other words, my belief is that our interest in the affairs of perfect strangers is regarded by the ...

— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... imagination greater than reasoning power, at once saw a Tuscan beauty and Diotti mutually pledging their love with ...

— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... works, but no literature. Mill's Logic, geographical descriptions, guidebooks, the Origin of Species, whatever may be the value of such volumes for thought or knowledge, they are not literature. There is only one test to apply to such books as those. If their statements are true, if their reasoning is accurate, if their exposition is clear, such works are good of their kind. Nevertheless, it is scarcely literary judgment which judges them. You might as well apply "architectural" criticism to our rows ...

— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

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