Recently, a cottage industry has formed with the goal of analyzing reasoning. The relevant notion of reasoning in which philosophers are expressly interested is fixed through an epistemic functional description: reasoning—whatever it is—is our personal-level, rationally evaluable means of meeting our rational requirements through managing and updating our attitudes. Roughly, the dominant view in the extant literature as developed by Paul Boghossian, John Broome, and others is that reasoning is a rule-governed operation over propositional attitudes that (...) results in a change in attitude. In this paper, I argue that our personal-level operations over mental models and visuospatial imagery, which are representations in a non-propositional/analogue format, can be rationally evaluable processes of managing our attitudes and, thus, should be considered reasoning in the relevant sense. Furthermore, I show that if reasoning can occur through operations over mental models and imagery, then the dominant rule-following account mischaracterizes the cognitive operations and representational states assumed to be constitutive of reasoning and what grounds the rational status of a line of reasoning. (shrink)

Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning refers to the diagrammatic inferential practice that originated in the geometrical proofs of Euclid’s Elements. A seminal philosophical analysis of this practice by Manders (‘The Euclidean diagram’, 2008) has revealed that a systematic method of reasoning underlies the use of diagrams in Euclid’s proofs, leading in turn to a logical analysis aiming to capture this method formally via proof systems. The central premise of this paper is that our understanding of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning can (...) be fruitfully advanced by confronting these logical and philosophical analyses with the field of cognitive science. Surprisingly, central aspects of the philosophical and logical analyses resonate in very natural ways with research topics in mathematical cognition, spatial cognition and the psychology of reasoning. The paper develops these connections, concentrating on four issues: (1) the cognitive origins of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning, (2) the cognitive representations of spatial relations in Euclidean diagrams, (3) the nature of the cognitive processes and cognitive representations involved in Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning seen as a form of visuospatial relational reasoning and (4) the complexity of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning for the human cognitive system. For each of these issues, our analysis generates concrete experiment proposals, opening thereby the way for further empirical investigations. The paper is thus a prolegomenon to a research program on Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning at the crossroads of logic, philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

Four experiments assessed the relative involvement of different working memory components in two types of reasoning tasks: propositional and spatial reasoning. Using the secondary-task methodology, visual, central-executive, and phonological loads were realised. Although the involvement of visuospatial resources in propositional reasoning has traditionally been considered to be small, an overall analysis of the present data suggests an alternative account. A theoretical analysis of the pattern of results in terms of Evans' (1984, 1989) twostage theory of (...) class='Hi'>reasoning is proposed and tested in Experiments 3 and 4, in which direct evidence for the alternative account was obtained: significant disruption of propositional reasoning by a concurrent spatial load. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently paid more attention to the physical aspects of scientific models. The attention is motivated by the prospect that a model’s physical features strongly affect its use and that this suggests re-thinking modelling in terms of extended or distributed cognition. This paper investigates two ways in which physical features of scientific models affect their use and it asks whether modelling is an instance of extended cognition. I approach these topics with a historical case study, in which scientists kept (...) records not only of their findings, but also of some the mental operations that generated the findings. The case study shows how scientists can employ a physical model as an external information store, which allows alternating between mental manipulations, recording the outcome externally, and then feeding the outcome back into subsequent mental manipulations. The case study also demonstrates that a models’ physical nature allows replacing explicit reasoning with visuospatial manipulations. I argue, furthermore, that physical modelling does not need to exemplify a strong kind of extended cognition, the sort for which external features are mereological parts of cognition. It can exemplify a weaker kind, instead. (shrink)

Sometimes I remember my past experiences from an ‘observer’ perspective, seeing myself in the remembered scene. This paper analyses the distinction in personal memory between such external observer visuospatial perspectives and ‘field’ perspectives, in which I experience the remembered actions and events as from my original point of view. It argues that Richard Wollheim’s related distinction between centred and acentred memory fails to capture the key phenomena, and criticizes Wollheim’s reasons for doubting that observer ‘memories’ are genuine personal memories. (...) Since field perspectives in personal memory are also likely to be the product of constructive processes, we should reject the common assumption that such constructive processes inevitably bring distortion and error. Yet field perspectives tend to be treated as privileged also in the domains of memory for skilled movement, and memory for trauma. In each case, it is argued that visuospatial perspective in personal memory should be distinguished from other kinds of perspective such as kinesthetic perspective and emotional perspective. (shrink)

This study examines the spontaneous use of embodied egocentric transformation in understanding false beliefs in the minds of others. EET involves the participants mentally transforming or rotating themselves into the orientation of an agent when trying to adopt his or her visuospatial perspective. We argue that psychological perspective taking such as false belief reasoning may also involve EET because of what has been widely reported in the embodied cognition literature, showing that our processing of abstract, propositional information is (...) often grounded in concrete bodily sensations which are not apparently linked to higher cognition. In Experiment 1, an agent placed a ball into one of two boxes and left. The ball then rolled out and moved either into the other box or back into the original one. The participants were to decide from which box they themselves or the agent would try to recover the ball. Results showed that false belief performance was affected by increased orientation disparity between the participants and the agent, suggesting involvement of embodied transformation. In Experiment 2, false belief was similarly induced and the participants were to decide if the agent would try to recover the ball in one specific box. Orientation disparity was again found to affect false belief performance. The present results extend previous findings on EET in visuospatial perspective taking and suggest that false belief reasoning, which is a kind of psychological perspective taking, can also involve embodied rotation, consistent with the embodied cognition view. (shrink)

Despite the importance of knowing the cognitive capabilities of children with neurodevelopmental conditions, less than one-third of children with cerebral palsy participate in standardized assessments. Globally, approximately 50% of people with cerebral palsy have an intellectual disability and there is significant risk for domain-specific cognitive impairments for the majority of people with cerebral palsy. However, standardized cognitive assessment tools are not accessible to many children with cerebral palsy, as they require manual manipulation of objects, verbal response and/or speeded response. As (...) such, standardised assessment may result in an underestimation of abilities for children with significant motor and/or speech impairment. The overall aim of the project is to examine and compare the psychometric properties of standardised cognitive assessment tools that have been accommodated for use with either a switch device or eye-gaze control technologies, with the specific aims to: Examine the psychometric properties of accommodated assessment tools by comparing the performance of typically developing children on six cognitive assessment tools administered via standardised versus accommodated administration; Describe and compare the performance and user experience of children with cerebral palsy on six accommodated cognitive assessments administered via switch or eye-gaze control technologies. Secondary aims are to: Describe the completion rates and time to complete assessments of participants in each group; Within the group with cerebral palsy, examine the effects of condition-specific characteristics and demographics on participation. This protocol paper describes a two-phase validation and acceptability study that utilizes a mixed-model design. This study will collect concurrent data from 80 typically developing children and 40 children with cerebral palsy, who use switch or eye-gaze control technology as alternate access communication methods. The set of instruments will measure receptive vocabulary, fluid reasoning, sustained attention, vision perception, visuospatial working memory and executive functions. Data analyses will be conducted using SPSS v. 25 and R v 4.1.0. SPSS Sample Power 3 was used for power computation and allows for a 10% drop out rate. Quantitative descriptive statistics, measurement agreement data plotting, bivariate and multiple regressions analysis will be conducted using appropriate methods. (shrink)

As Kant claimed in the Groundwork, and as the idea has been developed by Korsgaard 1997, Bratman 1987, and Broome 2002. This formulation is agnostic on whether reasons for ends derive from our desiring those ends, or from the relation of those ends to things of independent value. However, desire-based theorists may deny, against Hubin 1999, that their theory is a combination of a principle of instrumental transmission and the principle that reasons for ends are provided by desires. Instead, they (...) may say, there is just one principle, a principle of, if you will, instrumental transmutation: if one desires the end, then one has reason to take the means. See the discussion of General Production, in section 8, for a doubt about this. (shrink)

One effect of information technology is the increasing need to present information visually. The trend raises intriguing questions. What is the logical status of reasoning that employs visualization? What are the cognitive advantages and pitfalls of this reasoning? What kinds of tools can be developed to aid in the use of visual representation? This newest volume on the Studies in Logic and Computation series addresses the logical aspects of the visualization of information. The authors of these specially commissioned (...) papers explore the properties of diagrams, charts, and maps, and their use in problem solving and teaching basic reasoning skills. As computers make visual representations more commonplace, it is important for professionals, researchers and students in computer science, philosophy, and logic to develop an understanding of these tools; this book can clarify the relationship between visuals and information. (shrink)

An Invitation to Formal Reasoning introduces the discipline of formal logic by means of a powerful new system formulated by Fred Sommers. This system, term logic, is different in a number of ways from the standard system employed in modern logic; most striking is its greater simplicity and naturalness. Based on a radically different theory of logical syntax than the one Frege used when initiating modern mathematical logic in the 19th Century, term logic borrows insights from Aristotle's syllogistic, Scholastic (...) logicians, Leibniz, and the 19th century British algebraists. Term logic takes its syntax directly from natural language, construing statements as combinations of pairs of terms, where complex terms are taken to have the same syntax as statements. Whereas standard logic requires extensive 'translation' from natural language to symbolic language, term logic requires only 'transcription' into the symbolic language. Its naturalness is the result of its ability to stay close to the forms of sentences usually found in every day discourse. Written by the founders of the term logic approach, An Invitation to Formal Reasoning is a unique introduction and exploration of this new system, offering numerous exercises and examples throughout the text. Summarising the standard system of mathematical logic to set term logic in context, and showing how the two systems compare, this book presents an alternative approach to standard modern logic for those studying formal logic, philosophy of language or computer theory. Fred Sommers is Professor Emeritus, Brandeis University, USA; George Englebretsen is Professor of Philosophy, Bishop's University, Canada. (shrink)

Originally published in 1982, this was an extensive and up-to-date review of research into the psychology of deductive reasoning, Jonathan Evans presents an alternative theoretical framework to the rationalist approach which had dominated much of the published work in this field at the time. The review falls into three sections. The first is concerned with elementary reasoning tasks, in which response latency is the prime measure of interest. The second and third sections are concerned with syllogistic and propositional (...) reasoning respectively, in which interest has focused on the explanation of frequently observed logical errors. In an extended discussion it is argued that reasoning processes are content specific, and give little indication of the operation of any underlying system of logical competence. Finally, a dual process theory of reasoning, with broad implications and connections with other fields of psychology, is elaborated and assessed in the light of recent evidence. (shrink)

Professionals in business and law, healthcare providers, educators, policymakers, consumers, and higher education practitioners value ethical reasoning skills. Because of this, we concentrated campus-wide reaccreditation efforts to help students actively engage in ER. In doing so, we re-conceptualized the ER process, implemented campus-wide ER interventions designed to be experienced by all undergraduate students, and created the ethical reasoning identification test to measure students’ ability to engage in a foundational step in the ER process. Using factor analysis, we demonstrated (...) internal validity evidence for ERIT scores. More specifically, confirmatory factor analysis provided support for a unidimensional factor structure, meaning stakeholders can report and analyze ERIT total scores. The unidimensional factor structure was replicated using two independent samples. Across all samples, ERIT scores demonstrated reliability consistent with professional standards. In addition, we collected external validity evidence for ERIT scores. The ERIT was sensitive to slight differences in ER training. That is, students experiencing a 75-min intervention performed better on the test compared to students without this experience. Overall, results suggested that our ER intervention may effectively increase students ER abilities and the ERIT demonstrated great potential for assessing foundational ethical reasoning skills. To further examine validity, researchers should consider known groups analyses with varying “doses” of the ER intervention, as well as measurement invariance studies. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Reincarnation/Rebirth Karma Causality Problem of Evil Determinism, Freedom, and Moral Responsibility Karma and Release Transfer of Merit Recent Developments Works cited.

According to the traditional view in the philosophy of logic facts of logic bear normative authority regarding how one ought to reason. Usually this is to mean that the relation of logical consequence between statements has some special relevance for how one’s beliefs should cohere. However, as I will argue in this article, this is just one way in which logic is normative for reasoning. For one thing, belief is not the only kind of mental state involved in (...) class='Hi'>reasoning. Besides adopting and revising beliefs, rational agents pose and resolve questions. For another thing, the consequence relation of classical logic can be conservatively extended such that it includes logical relations between questions as well. Therefore, there is an argument to be made that not only the inference of new beliefs from extant beliefs but also the process of raising additional questions falls under the normative authority of logic. Accordingly, a nuanced account of the normativity of logic presents itself, which convincingly deals with problems such as clutter-avoidance and the paradox of the preface. (shrink)

Much has been written on the role of causal notions and causal reasoning in the so-called 'special sciences' and in common sense. But does causal reasoning also play a role in physics? Mathias Frisch argues that, contrary to what influential philosophical arguments purport to show, the answer is yes. Time-asymmetric causal structures are as integral a part of the representational toolkit of physics as a theory's dynamical equations. Frisch develops his argument partly through a critique of anti-causal arguments (...) and partly through a detailed examination of actual examples of causal notions in physics, including causal principles invoked in linear response theory and in representations of radiation phenomena. Offering a new perspective on the nature of scientific theories and causal reasoning, this book will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students, and anyone interested in the role of causal thinking in science. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to determine whether analogical reasoning can supply a basis for believing that we have a moral obligation to rescue strangers. The paper will focus on donating cadaver organs. I construct a moral analogical argument involving an easy rescue case and organ donation. Various alleged relevant differences between the cases are examined and rejected. Finally, what I cal l “the ownership dilemma” is introduced and I conclude that this dilemma is inescapable. Thus, analogical (...) class='Hi'>reasoning, however convincing it might appear, is virtually worthless as a strategy of rationality persuading people that they have a duty to donate blood, cadaver organs, or, more generally, a duty to give up any property to aid strangers. (shrink)

The central argument that Leslie Smith makes in this study is that reasoning by mathematical induction develops during childhood. The basis for this claim is a study conducted with children aged five to seven years in school years one and two.

Regress arguments have convinced many that reasoning cannot require beliefs about what follows from what. In this paper I argue that this is a mistake. Regress arguments rest on dubious (although deeply entrenched) assumptions about the nature of reasoning — most prominently, the assumption that believing p by reasoning is simply a matter of having a belief in p with the right causal ancestry. I propose an alternative account, according to which beliefs about what follows from what (...) play a constitutive role in reasoning. (shrink)

In this work, Paul Bartha proposes a normative theory of analogical arguments and raises questions and proposes answers regarding the criteria for evaluating analogical arguments, the philosophical justification for analogical reasoning, and the place of scientific analogies in the context of theoretical confirmation.

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current (...) in psychology and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

Recent research in moral psychology highlights the role of emotion and intuition in moral judgment. In the wake of these findings, the role and significance of moral reasoning remain uncertain. In this article, we distinguish among different kinds of moral reasoning and review evidence suggesting that at least some kinds of moral reasoning play significant roles in moral judgment, including roles in abandoning moral intuitions in the absence of justifying reasons, applying both deontological and utilitarian moral principles, (...) and counteracting automatic tendencies toward bias that would otherwise dominate behavior. We argue that little is known about the psychology of moral reasoning and that it may yet prove to be a potent social force. (shrink)

This is a revised and extended version of the formal theory of holes outlined in the Appendix to the book "Holes and Other Superficialities". The first part summarizes the basic framework (ontology, mereology, topology, morphology). The second part emphasizes its relevance to spatial reasoning and to the semantics of spatial prepositions in natural language. In particular, I discuss the semantics of ‘in’ and provide an account of such fallacious arguments as “There is a hole in the sheet. The sheet (...) is in the drawer. Ergo *there is a hole in the drawer”. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an approach to practical reasoning, reasoning about what it is best for a particular agent to do in a given situation, based on presumptive justifications of action through the instantiation of an argument scheme, which is then subject to examination through a series of critical questions. We identify three particular aspects of practical reasoning which distinguish it from theoretical reasoning. We next provide an argument scheme and an associated set of critical (...) questions which is able to capture these features. In order that both the argument scheme and the critical questions can be given precise interpretations we use the semantic structure of an Action-Based Alternating Transition System as the basis for their definition. We then work through a detailed example to show how this approach to practical reasoning can be applied to a problem solving situation, and briefly describe some other previous applications of the general approach. In a second example we relate our account to the social laws paradigm for co-ordinating multi-agent systems. The contribution of the paper is to provide firm foundations for an approach to practical reasoning based on presumptive argument in terms of a well-known model for representing the effects of actions of a group of agents. (shrink)

In _Reliable Reasoning_, Gilbert Harman and Sanjeev Kulkarni -- a philosopher and an engineer -- argue that philosophy and cognitive science can benefit from statistical learning theory, the theory that lies behind recent advances in machine learning. The philosophical problem of induction, for example, is in part about the reliability of inductive reasoning, where the reliability of a method is measured by its statistically expected percentage of errors -- a central topic in SLT. After discussing philosophical attempts to evade (...) the problem of induction, Harman and Kulkarni provide an admirably clear account of the basic framework of SLT and its implications for inductive reasoning. They explain the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of a set of hypotheses and distinguish two kinds of inductive reasoning. The authors discuss various topics in machine learning, including nearest-neighbor methods, neural networks, and support vector machines. Finally, they describe transductive reasoning and suggest possible new models of human reasoning suggested by developments in SLT. (shrink)

The 'no-supervenience' theorem (Reason, 2019; Reason and Shah, 2021) is a proof that no fully self-aware system can entirely supervene on any objectively observable system. I here present a simple, non-technical summary of the proof and demonstrate its implications for four separate theories of consciousness: the 'property dualism' theory of David Chalmers; the 'reflexive monism' of Max Velmans; Galen Strawson's 'realistic monism'; and the 'illusionism' of Keith Frankish. It is shown that all are ruled out in their current form by (...) the no-supervenience theorem, except for Chalmers' theory, which I show requires humans to behave irrationally. (shrink)

When we experience the world – see, hear, feel, taste, or smell things – we gain all sorts of knowledge about the things around us. And this knowledge figures heavily in our reasoning about the world – about what to think and do in response to it. But what is the nature of this knowledge? On one commonly held view, all knowledge is constituted by beliefs in propositions. But in this paper I argue against this view. I argue that (...) some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. To make my case, I focus on the role of visual perception in reasoning. I start by introducing a principle about the relationship between knowledge and reasoning, which says that to learn something new by reasoning, one must know the bases of one’s reasoning. Then I argue that in some cases of genuine, knowledge-conferring reasoning, the bases of our reasoning are not propositions that we believe; rather, they’re properties or objects that we see. Thus, I conclude that some such knowledge is non-propositional and is rather what some call “knowledge of things”. (shrink)

Reasoning is a certain kind of attitude-revision. What kind? The aim of this paper is to introduce and defend a new answer to this question, based on the idea that reasoning is a goodness-fixing kind. Our central claim is that reasoning is a functional kind: it has a constitutive point or aim that fixes the standards for good reasoning. We claim, further, that this aim is to get fitting attitudes. We start by considering recent accounts of (...) reasoning due to Ralph Wedgwood and John Broome, and argue that, while these accounts contain important insights, they are not satisfactory: Wedgwood’s rules out too much, and Broome’s too little. We then introduce and defend our alternative account, discuss some of its implications and attractions, and, finally, consider objections. (shrink)

This paper shows how reasoning from best explanation combines with linguistic and factual presumptions during the process of retrieving a speaker’s intention. It is shown how differences between presumptions need to be used to pick the best explanation of a pragmatic manifestation of a dialogical intention. It is shown why we cannot simply jump to an interpretative conclusion based on what we presume to be the most common purpose of a speech act, and why, in cases of indirect speech (...) acts, we need to depend on an abductive process of interpretation. (shrink)

This study assessed the relationship between ethical reasoning and the decision to grant equitable relief using an innocent spouse vignette where a wife had partial knowledge of her husband''s tax fraud. A path model derived from various ethics theories was tested using a sample of 357 accounting, legal, and human resource professionals, and after careful examination of the measurement and structural relationships in the path model, the results provided partial support for the study''s hypotheses. Moral intensity was marginally associated (...) with an increased recognition of an ethical issue and positively related ethical judgments made in an innocent spouse situation, and moral intensity was also negatively related to the decision to grant relief. The ethical judgment variable was positively related to the decision to grant relief, while ethical issue awareness was marginally associated with the decision to deny relief. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

This chapter argues that epistemic uses of the imagination are a sui generis form of reasoning. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, there are imaginings which instantiate the epistemic structure of reasoning. Second, reasoning with imagination is not reducible to reasoning with doxastic states. Thus, the epistemic role of the imagination is that it is a distinctive way of reasoning out what follows from our prior evidence. This view has a number of important implications (...) for the epistemology of the imagination. For one thing, it clarifies the epistemic role of widely invoked “constraints” on the imagination. For another, it highlights important and underappreciated disanalogies between how perceptual experiences and imaginings justify beliefs. Ultimately, the view that we can reason with imagination offers an illuminating and theoretically fruitful framework through which to understand the epistemic structure of the imagination. (shrink)