META-PHILOSOPHY

or chapter 10 of Death of Philosophy

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In the previous nine chapters (available on https://sites.google.com/site/philosophyphilosophizing/ or
https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian) I dealt with symptoms or aspects of the dying and the death
of the philosophical discourse and philosophizing.

2
I explored aspects and domains of what were traditionally perceived and treated as if they are philosophy. As if
they are what philosophy is concerned with. These domains include metaphysics, ontology and epistemology.

3
I indicated that some aspects of these sub-discourses or domains of the philosophical discourse might or might
not be relevant to philosophizing and the philosophical discourse. It depends on the methods being employed,
the aims and purpose of the treatment of these subjects and the norms being followed or applied.

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I also dealt with other so-called branches of philosophy, for example ethics, political philosophy, philosophy or
art, etc. I did this with the purpose described in point 3 above.

5
In chapter 9 I posted a number of conceptions and descriptions of meta-philosophy or philosophy of philosophy
from readily available sites and articles on internet as well a lengthy bibliographies of this topic.

6
I specifically mentioned the social theory schools of the German Frankfurt Schule as an example of what
philosophy is not. Whatever adherents to that school in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th generations were doing, it is not
philosophy or philosophizing. To sum up - it seems of what they conceive as philosophy is a tool to legitimize
their own theoretical explorations and speculations. Often these are in some or other way related to ‘social
theory’.
Non philosophy was mentioned and dealt with for the same reasons as Critical Theory.

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The above appears rather negative but the intention was meant to be positive, although a first, superficial glance
might not appear as such. Namely to explore things such as the following: the ‘nature’ of philosophy and doing
philosophy or philosophizing, the purpose of the philosophical discourse, the aim of philosophizing, methods,
techniques and tools employed by philosophy, what can be considered meaningful and legitimate subject-matter
or objects of philosophical investigation, the nature of philosophical investigation, philosophical terminology,
concepts and ideas, in so far as possible doing philosophy in ordinary language (not borrowing it from other
discourses such as logic, natural and human sciences, humanities, the arts, etc), destroying the aim, nature and
discourse of philosophy by so-called branches of philosophy (in other words by dealing with subjects, domains,
topics and problems, such as ethics, art, politics, etc that are not philosophical subject-matter), and a number of
other topics, subjects and philosophically-related concerns.

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As stated in previous chapters the scope and purpose of philosophy and philosophizing is not to discover or
develop new or more factual information or knowledge as is the case with the sciences, humanities, linguistics
etc. It is to clarify things we think and say, to identify misleading notions, misleading ways of expressing and
employing ideas, misleading and confused reasons for doing such things, to become clear about the reasons for
philosophizing, to be aware when misleading speculations and generalizations are made, not to become involved
in making such generalizations and speculations (in the name of philosophy, as this discourse is unable to make
such things) and a number of other diseases, dis-eases caused by misleading ‘philosophizing’, when we perceive
things, when we express or depict what we perceive, when we think and talk about what we perceive, when we
think, write and deal with things and when we talk and think about what we write and deal with and how we
deal with things.

In short - Is it possible to have philosophical knowledge, or justified beliefs about philosophy? Are there reasons
to be sceptical about philosophy, both the discourse and the doing it or practice or the socio-cultural practice of

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philosophizing itself? There are at least two key kinds of questions here: first, is there something about the study
of philosophy, as discourse and practice, which makes it especially difficult to attain philosophical ‘knowledge’,
not mere factual information or factual knowledge, but insights and understanding (concerning the subject, the
discourse, the practice of philosophy itself)? Second, are any strategies and approaches preferable, for example
sceptical strategies? Are they, or which strategies and approaches are, applicable to philosophy?

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Original, creative thinking philosophers have certain styles of writing. One thing they have in common and that
is drastically different from scholarly, professional and academic work is - what they write and what they write
about are original and new, without endless references to the work, insights, notions and ideas of others and
bibliographies of other individuals and their books, their own new and original insights and ideas based on,
derived from or developed from. All derivative work, parasitical enriched by work of original thinkers, clad in
complex, seemingly technical, second order terms about things, not directly expressing first order creative and
original thinking.
This format, that distinguishes creative thinking and original thinking philosophers from secondary philosophers
who write and think about other philosophers, their insights, their thoughts and their ideas, have always baffled
me. To view what I refer to, look at Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, the writings of Heidegger or Husserl, the
work of Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein or Kant?
Why is this the case? Why do secondary, academic and professional thinkers (philosophers?) need the thoughts,
the insights, the ideas and work of others (original, creative thinking philosophers) to identify subject-matter to
explore, investigate, research and write about? Why do secondary philosophers require the thoughts, the insights
of other, creative thinking philosophers to find something to write and think about? Why is it that the writings of
secondary philosophers have the form of lectures, the typical form of professional academics that we find in all
‘scholarly’ journals of ‘philosophy’?
The methods, the instruments the tools of original, creative thinking philosophers differ from those of
secondary, professional, academic scholars and thinkers. The first employs instruments that enable them to
express their original ideas and to explore and develop these and to depict their new insights and original
understanding of new or traditional subject-matter and topics. Secondary thinkers employ and require other
tools, tools that enable them to explore the ideas and the writings, the insights and understanding as expressed
by others. Tools that allow them to dissect the work of others, to explore the work of others, to identify new
insights and points of understanding and then to report these things - often in a critical manner, the manner of a
teacher marking the work of students, accompanied by teacher like, pedagogical, instructing and instructive
comments. The latter is the stuff academic lectures are made of, the stuff that articles in professional,
philosophical journals are filled with. For this reviewing, critique like, exploration and talking about the work of
others there exist special, specialized, expert vocabularies. Complex seemingly technical terms exist and are
constantly developed and invented for this talking about intentions of the reviewing aims of secondary thinkers.

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Original- and creative-thinking philosophers will spend their energy and time on issues, subjects and questions
that are crucial to their existence, their lives, their attitudes, values, life-worlds, their realities, aesthetics, their
feelings, needs, emotions, spirituality, political views, socio-cultural existence, thinking , social and/or
psychological problems (eg Feyerabend’s depressions, Nietzsche’s problems, etc) emotions and of the course
the philosophical ‘attitude and need” for philosophical questioning, problematization, exploration and the doing
of philosophizing itself, existing or living as a philosopher and a ‘philosophical’ style of being. In other words
living philosophy as total, all-encompassing role like that of a monastic, a religious monk or nun (especially of
the so-called contemplative kind). They might deal with these things in other ways as well, eg through
relationships, by means of other socio-cultural discourses and –practices (such as the writing of poetry, essays,
novels, the visual arts, films, religious life for example being a monastic, priest, a religious hermit, being a
politician, medical doctor, research scientist, etc). However for these individuals (do they share certain
character and personality types) the discourse of philosophy and the execution of the socio-cultural practice of
philosophizing is the be-all and end-all of human existence. No wonder Plato and others were convinced and
thought it was the purpose of human existence, the way to be, the only and real way to live, a life that would
lead to beauty, THE ONE (becoming or becoming part of or united with THE ONE), the path to insights and
understanding that would realize wisdom – the state of the mind of god/s.

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For creative- and original-thinking philosophers philosophizing is not merely an academic exercise, it does not
consist of scholarly examinations of and treatises on other philosophers, the ideas of others, the obtaining of
academic qualifications, the acceptance of their investigations by peers, publication of books or lists of articles
in journals. It is sufficient for such individuals to think through their problematization or problematizing or if

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necessary to write it down to express it in rough in workbooks or merely record it as thoughts on or as (tape)
recordings. The visible end result in some cultural form is not of importance, what is important is the doing of it.
It reminds one of aspects of the motivation of religious individuals and monastics who ‘recite’ their prayers,
prayer books and other devotions.

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To the creative-thinking philosopher a non-philosophical, a non-philosophizing life is not worth living. One way
of writing an article or book by academic philosophers is merely to identify and then express and conceptualize
the implications of things or ideas that are contained in and implied by the work of others, such as the author,
the article or the issue being discussed. This conceptual analysis or making explicit the notions that are implied
by the subject being investigated is then employed to make generalizations by means of and about these ideas.
This is often how far the creative and original thinking skills and abilities of the academic,, scholarly,
professional philosopher extends, as expressed in his lectures, articles, books and speeches.
Another aspect of this ‘style’ is to make generalizations by means of and/or about the ideas, or the implications
of such ideas in and about or of the work of the thinker being explored. The work of others are in this manner
being employed to produce what the author then assumes are original insights, ideas, schemes of ideas, models,
technical terms and generalizations.
Such making explicit the implications of the ideas in the work being investigated are frequently accompanied by
what the writer considers to be relevant and profound criticism of the ideas and notions in the work of the
thinker he is exploring and reviewing. Corrections to the notions being used and how they are used are often
suggested. We often find that reviewers identify what they consider to be shortcomings in the work under
review and make seemingly profound suggestions on how to overcome such shortcomings. This is frequently
done by the extension and making explicit what is being implied by the ideas and concepts being explored or
reviewed. Of course all sorts of complex, technical terms will be employed to give such descriptions a technical
appearance or varnish.

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All serious philosophers (I mean creative- and original thinking individuals by this terms, unless I specifically
mention academic, professional and scholarly types) will at some or other time think about philosophy and
philosophizing. This frequently occurs when an individual is introduce to or initially make contact with the
subject. The serious thinker will question this discourse through his entire life, often because it is a related to an
exploration of himself, his self, his existence, existence as such, the aim of his life and other existential queries.
All such philosophical explorations are at some time or another bound to reflect philosophically on and question
the attitudes, assumptions, pre-suppositions and other kinds of transcendentals (of the socio-cultural practice or
discourse as well as the thinker’s own) from a meta- or second-order perspective. The individual may not
always be aware of the fact that his questioning are of a meta-nature.
More important than the fact that such questioning is, at least, both firs-order and second-order is the nature of
the frame of references, methods, techniques, assumptions and other transcendentals that are involved. Are the
first and second-order transcendentals (such as assumptions, frame of reference, purpose and aim of the enquiry)
identical or not the same? What is the nature of first-order philosophical transcendentals and that of second- or
meta-order transcendentals?
Even the first-order transcendentals being employed by philosophizing might well differ from those of first-
order perception, thinking and other Kantian-type aspects (eg space, time, etc). There is therefore a good chance
that second-order philosophical reflection on philosophy (the philosophical discourse, socio-cultural practice,
assumptions, terminology, frames of reference and other transcendentals) will differ from those employed and
subscribed to by first-order philosophizing.
It will often be the case that second-order questions and activities are involved in, or at least implied by, first-
order philosophical practices. It might be useful and perhaps even essential that these things are distinguished,
as conflation of them, and ignorance of them occurring might lead to conflations of their frames of references,
attitudes, aims, functions and other transcendentals. More on this later.

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What is philosophically wrong and misleading with what often passes as philosophy? Is it the subject-matter, the
way of dealing (often not logical, ‘philosophical’ thinking and reasoning) with subject-matter (eg by so-called
critical theorists of the second, third and fourth generations, such as their unnecessary complex, neologisms and
other terms, philosophically irrelevant ideas and questions and their over-emphasis on social theory – that often
leads to sociologism), methodology, methods, techniques? Perhaps the rationale, the aims, the purpose of the
philosophizing, for example in the case of critical (social, sociological) theory to develop or obtain sociological
(or other theories, frames of reference, arguments, explorations, models, theories, etc) knowledge.

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The reasoning being employed then becomes misleading because it is employed for reasons other than that of
philosophy, just as the purpose, rationale and aims of the investigations are not (pure) philosophical as they
involve aspects from other discourses (eg sociology, politics, ethics, logical etc). In short, the thinker must be
clear about the discourse he wishes to employ and the transcendentals of the discourse, and not conflate those of
the philosophical discourse with transcendentals (assumptions, frames of reference, terms, aims, etc) from other
discourses and socio-cultural practices. Lists of such non-philosophical issues and phenomena being introduced
into ‘philosophizing’ can be made, for example in the case of sociologists misemploying, abusing philosophy or
what they imagine is philosophy and philosophizing, philosophically irrelevant or non-philosophical concerns
and topics (eg problems in social theory, communication, logic, mathematics, religion, psychology etc) are
investigated, reflected upon and generalizations made (notions, models and theories developed) as if they are
philosophical. One frequently sees this in ‘philosophical’ investigations of language (and language usage), logic
and consciousness – as well, of course, of much of what is passed off as philosophy.
Whatever the origin and nature of the aims, attitudes, values, aims and other transcendentals being subscribed
and committed to, they frequently are not philosophical, but from other disciplines. Even attitudes and aims such
as that of ‘professionalism’ (status, roles, peers, etc) can subtly invade and colour those being employed in the
activity of philosophizing.

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What should individuals, for example those concerned with linguistic, communicative, cognitive, logical, socio-
cultural, mathematical and other problems be doing if they were serious about the philosophy and the doing of
philosophy? That is, instead of abusing, attempting to employ philosophizing and the philosophical discourse
for their own motives, for the sake of other discourses, attempting to solve problems form other, even if
seemingly philosophically-related, disciplines and subject-matter, those who wish to philosophize or do things
within the philosophical discourse, should constantly be clear about questions such as the following -
- What sort of questions to ask
- What kind of problems to deal with and to restrict oneself to (as philosophy cannot dissolve all
problems and questions, concerning every subject or subject-matter)
- How to dis/solve such questions and problems
- How philosophy(izing) can dis/solve questions and problems, what it can and what it cannot do
- What would be considered as relevant and meaningful philosophical ‘answers’
- What could be viewed as acceptable and meaningful philosophical dis/solution, dis/solving of
problems and questions (instead of the development and building of social, communicative, logical,
psychological, linguistic or other notions, models, theories, paradigms or ‘turns’
- In short what philosophy can do, what philosophizing cannot do and what philosophy must do.

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In an attempt to understand what philosophy is, what it is about and how one proceeds in doing philosophy or
philosophizing, let us look at the subject-matter, if there exists any, of the philosophical discourse.
Is there even something like a philosophical discourse or discipline? Are there clear limits for this discipline,
where it is separated from all other disciplines, especially those of ethics, theology, psychology, mathematics,
logics, social sciences, cognitive studies and sciences, arts and humanities, linguistics, literature?
It seems as if the subject-matter of philosophy has changed over centuries. Of course the subject-matter of most
if not all disciplines and socio-cultural practices change over time. Take as an example music, painting as one
genre of the visual arts discourse or physics. All these disciplines have changed, perhaps even developed over
time as far as their subject-matter, methods and techniques go. Contemporary painting for example is very
different from that of the last century and as for what is understood by ‘art’, that also have become almost
recognizable when compared to what ‘art’ was thought to be in the past.
There are very specific reasons I mentioned the above disciplines. The discourse of logic for example is often
treated by ‘philosophers ’as if it forms part of the philosophical discipline and that the role of the philosopher
can and may deal with the subject-matter of logic. It can be understood that this notion exists because ‘logic’,
logical reasoning and other topics (such as those dealt with by Aristotle, Russel, Wittgenstein, Kant, Frege,
William of Ockham, Leibniz, Strawson, Babbage, De Morgan, Boole, Cantor, Turing, Brouwer, Gentzen,
Puttnam, Quine, Birkhoff, von Neuman, Dummett, Lewis, etc.) have often been dealt with by philosophers and
others who thought they were doing philosophy or investigating philosophically-related questions.
 Here are a few logical types, the hyperlinks will lead to articles discussing them:
 Syllogistic logic
 Predicate logic
 Modal logic
 Informal reasoning and dialectic

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  Mathematical logic
 Philosophical logic
 Computational logic
 Non-classical logics
I am however not concerned with the nature of different kinds of logic, but with the fact that
logic is often viewed by philosophers as if it forms part of the subject-matter and the
discourse of philosophy.
Some of the controversies or the more ‘philosophical’ questions that are asked concerning
logic are:
 "Is logic empirical?"
 Implication: Strict or material
 Tolerating the impossible
 Rejection of logical truth
The philosophical vein of various kinds of skepticism contains many kinds of doubt and
rejection of the various bases on which logic rests, such as the idea of logical form, correct
inference, or meaning, typically leading to the conclusion that there are no logical truths.
Observe that this is opposite to the usual views in philosophical skepticism, where logic
directs skeptical enquiry to doubt received wisdoms, as in the work of Sextus Empiricus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic#Rejection_of_logical_truth
Philosophical scepticism is a vast study in itself consisting of different positions and methods
that crosses disciplines. Philosophical scepticism is distinguished from methodological
skepticism in that philosophical scepticism is an approach that questions the possibility of
certainty in knowledge, whereas methodological scepticism is an approach that subjects all
knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims. There exist
schools of scepticism and it can also be an epistemological argument concerning the question
if knowledge is possible.
Kant became involved in this with his attempt to give a ground to knowledge in the empirical
sciences but this position prevented the possibility of knowledge of any other knowledge,
especially what Kant called "metaphysical knowledge". So, for Kant, empirical science was
legitimate, but metaphysics and philosophy was mostly illegitimate.
Pierre Le Morvan (2011) has distinguished between three broad philosophical approaches to
skepticism. https://www.pdcnet.org/logos-episteme/content/logos-
episteme_2011_0002_0001_0087_0102

So as to be able to make a distinction between where logic ends and where ‘proper’
philosophizing or philosophically relevant subject-matter begins will require endless books
and articles because of the complexity and the diversity or the questions and topics involved.
Here are only a few of them –
Logic as a concern with correctness of argumentation (is this not also a crucial topic to the
doing of philosophy and the making of philosophical ‘judgements’?). Modern logicians
usually wish to ensure that logic studies just those arguments that arise from appropriately

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general forms of inference. For example, Thomas Hofweber writes in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy that logic "does not, however, cover good reasoning as a whole.
That is the job of the theory of rationality. Rather it deals with inferences whose validity can
be traced back to the formal features of the representations that are involved in that inference,
be they linguistic, mental, or other representations." Hofweber, T. (2004). "Logic and
Ontology". In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) however argued for seeing logic as the science of judgement, an
idea taken up in the logical and philosophical work of Gottlob Frege (1848–1925). Frege's
work is ambiguous in the sense that it is both concerned with the "laws of thought" as well as
with the "laws of truth" it both treats logic in the context of a theory of the mind, and treats
logic as the study of abstract formal structures).
Logic has been defined as "the study of arguments correct in virtue of their form". The idea
that logic treats special forms of argument, deductive argument, rather than argument in
general, has a history in logic that dates back at least to logicism in mathematics (19th and
20th centuries) and the advent of the influence of mathematical logic on philosophy. A
consequence of taking logic to treat special kinds of argument is that it leads to identification
of special kinds of truth, the logical truths (with logic equivalently being the study of logical
truth), and excludes many of the original objects of study of logic that are treated as informal
logic. Robert Brandom has argued against the idea that logic is the study of a special kind of
logical truth, arguing that instead one can talk of the logic of material inference (in the
terminology of Wilfred Sellars), with logic making explicit the commitments that were
originally implicit in informal inference.
Philosophy of Logic
Philosophical logic refers to those areas of philosophy in which recognized methods of logic
have traditionally been used to solve or advance the discussion of philosophical problems.
Among these, Sybil Wolfram highlights the study of argument, meaning and truth, while
Colin McGinn presents identity, existence, predication, necessity and truth as the main topics
of his book on the subject.
Note the terms – the appear as if tupical philosophical terms and ideas.
Philosophical logic also addresses extensions and alternatives to traditional, "classical" logic
known as "non-classical" logics. These receive more attention in texts such as John P.
Burgess's Philosophical Logic, the Blackwell Companion to Philosophical Logic, or the
multi-volume Handbook of Philosophical Logic edited by Dov M. Gabbay and Franz
Guenthner.
 Dale Jacquette, A Companion to Philosophical Logic, Wiley-Blackwell: 2002.
  Wolfram, Sybil. Philosophical Logic: An Introduction. Routledge: 1989. ISBN  0-415-
02317-3.
  Preface to Colin McGinn, Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication,
Necessity, Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-19-926263-2).
  John P. Burgess, Philosophical Logic, Princeton University Press: 2009.
  Lou Goble (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic, Oxford: Blackwell:
2009 (ISBN 0-631-20693-0).
 http://www.springer.com/series/6024
Philosophy of Mind

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Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental
events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the
physical body, particularly the brain. The mind–body problem, i.e. the relationship of the
mind to the body, is commonly seen as one key issue in philosophy of mind, although there
are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the
physical body, such as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental
states.
There are countless subjects that are affected by the ideas developed in the philosophy of
mind. Clear examples of this are the nature of death and its definitive character, the nature of
emotion, of perception and of memory. Questions about what a person is and what his or her
identity consists of also have much to do with the philosophy of mind. There are two subjects
that, in connection with the philosophy of the mind, have aroused special attention: free will
and the self.
 Oliver Elbs, Neuro-Esthetics: Mapological foundations and applications (Map 2003),
(Munich 2005)
  Kim, J. (1995). Honderich, Ted, ed. Problems in the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford
Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  Siegel, S.: The Contents of Visual Experience. New York: Oxford University Press.
2010
 Macpherson, F. & Haddock, A., editors, Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Kim, J. (1995). Honderich, Ted, ed. Problems in the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford Companion
to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A few other disciplines that share this subject-matter are –
 Philosophy of perception
 Philosophy of mind and science
 Neurobiology
 Computer science
 Psychology
 Cognitive science
 Also think of the philosophy of mind in the Continental tradition, that tradition causes
philosophers to become involved in subject-matter of other discourse and disciplines.
Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Husserl, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, etc.
The study of argument is of clear importance to the reasons that we hold things to be true, so
logic is of essential importance to rationality. Logic can also be defined to be "the systematic
study of the form of arguments"; the reasoning behind argument is of several sorts, but only
some of these arguments fall under the aegis of logic proper. While inductive and abductive
inference are not part of logic proper, the methodology of logic has been applied to them with
some degree of success.
The Journal of Philosophical Logic is a peer-reviewed scientific journal founded in 1972. It
is published by Springer and "provides a forum for work at the crossroads of philosophy and
logic, old and new, with contributions ranging from conceptual to technical.

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Accordingly, the Journal publishes papers in all of the traditional areas of philosophical
logic, including: various versions of modal, temporal, epistemic, and deontic logic;
constructive logics; relevance and other sub-classical logics; many-valued logics; logics of
conditionals; quantum logic; decision theory, inductive logic, logics of belief change, and
formal epistemology; defeasible and non-monotonic logics; formal philosophy of language;
vagueness; and theories of truth and validity.
In addition to publishing papers on philosophical logic in this familiar sense of the term, the
Journal also publishes papers on extensions of logic to new areas of application, and on the
philosophical issues to which these give rise. The Journal places a special emphasis on the
applications of philosophical logic in other disciplines, not only in mathematics and the
natural sciences but also, for example, in computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive
science, linguistics, jurisprudence, and the social sciences, such as economics, sociology, and
political science."
Note all the other disciplines being involved with ‘philosophical’ logic. In my view this is
unacceptable as this is where the doing of philosophy ends and the working in other
disciplines and becoming involved with their subject-matter begins.
Note from the above how many areas of the philosophical discourse are shared with aspects
or areas of logic, meaningfully or not, legitimately or not – all possible distractions of
philosophers from the doing of philosophy into exercising other socio-cultural practices.
Also note below the other, not philosophical discourses, being involved in this distraction of
philosophizing -

This Journal is abstracted in: Bibliographie linguistique/Linguistic bibliography,

Bibliography of Linguistic Literature, Current Abstracts, Current Contents/Arts and
Humanities, Dietrich's Index Philosophicus, Digital Mathematics Registry, Family & Society
Studies Worldwide, FRANCIS, Google Scholar, Humanities International Index,
International Bibliography of Book Reviews (IBR), Mathematical Reviews, MLA
International Bibliography, PASCAL, Répertoire Bibliographique de la Philosophie,
SCOPUS, Summon by Serial Solutions, The Philosopher's Index, TOC Premier, Zentralblatt
Math

Following the developments in formal logic with symbolic logic in the late nineteenth
century and mathematical logic in the twentieth, topics traditionally treated by logic not being
part of formal logic have tended to be termed either philosophy of logic or philosophical
logic if no longer simply logic.
Compared to the history of logic the demarcation between philosophy of logic and
philosophical logic is of recent coinage and not always entirely clear. Characterisations
include
 Philosophy of logic is the area of philosophy devoted to examining the scope and
nature of logic.
 Philosophy of logic is the investigation, critical analysis and intellectual reflection on
issues arising in logic. The field is considered to be distinct from philosophical logic.

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  Philosophical logic is the branch of study that concerns questions about reference,
predication, identity, truth, quantification, existence, entailment, modality, and
necessity.
 Philosophical logic is the application of formal logical techniques to philosophical
problems.
  Fisher Jennifer, On the Philosophy of Logic, Thomson Wadworth, 2008, ISBN
978-0-495-00888-0
  Goble, Lou, ed., 2001. (The Blackwell Guide to) Philosophical Logic. Oxford:
Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-20693-0.
  Grayling, A. C., 1997. An Introduction to Philosophical Logic. 3rd ed. Oxford:
Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19982-9.
 Aristotle  Gottlob Frege  Charles Sanders Peirce
 George Boole  Kurt Gödel  Alvin Plantinga
 George Boolos  Georg Hegel  Arthur Prior
 Rudolf Carnap  Immanuel Kant  Willard Van Orman Quine
 Gordon Clark  Gottfried Leibniz  Bertrand Russell
 Alonzo Church  David Lewis  Alfred Tarski
 Augustus De Morgan  John Stuart Mill  Ludwig Wittgenstein
 Michael Dummett

Philosophers of Logic -
 W.V.O. Quine  Michael  Charles  Augustus De
 Bertrand Dummett Sanders Peirce Morgan
Russell  Hilary Putnam  Alfred Tarski  Gordon Clark
 Ludwig  Saul Kripke  Donald  Aristotle
Wittgenstein Davidson

 Conceptualism
 Constructivism
 Dialetheism
 Fictionalism
 Finitism
 Formalism
 Intuitionism
 Logical atomism
 Logicism
 Nominalism
 Realism
 Platonic realism
 Structuralism
Truth
 Truthbearers
 Tarski's definition of Truth
 Analytic Truths, Logical truth, Validity, Logical consequence and Entailment
 Paradox

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Look at the philosophical subjects being drawn into studies in logic.
Below, more philosophical topics shared with other disciplines, therefore possible
distractions from philosophizing and doing that what is appropriate to practice in other
discourses or disciplines –
 Sense and reference
 Theory of reference
 Mediated reference theory
 Direct reference theory
 Causal theory of reference (section References)
 Descriptivist theory of names (section References)
 Saul Kripke (section References)
 Frege's Puzzle (section New Theories of Reference and the Return of Frege's Puzzle)
 Gottlob Frege (section References)
 Failure of reference (section References)
 Rigid designator (section Causal-Historical Theory of Reference)
 Philosophy of language (section References)
 Index of philosophy of language articles
 Supposition theory (section References)
 Referring expression
 Meaning (philosophy of language)
 Denotation and Connotation
 Extension and Intension
 Extensional definition
 Intensional definition
 Metacommunicative competence
 Absent referent

Names and descriptions

 Failure to refer
 Proper name (philosophy)
 Definite description
 Descriptivist theory of names
 Theory of descriptions
 Singular term
 Term logic § Singular terms
 Empty name
 Bas van Fraassen § Singular Terms, Truth-value Gaps, and Free Logic
 The Foundations of Arithmetic § Development of Frege's own view of a number
 Philosophy of language § references
 Direct reference
 Mediated reference theory

Philosophical theories and systems can resemble, at least some aspects of, logical systems. A
formal system is an organisation of terms used for the analysis of deduction. It consists of an

10
alphabet, a language over the alphabet to construct sentences, and a rule for deriving
sentences. Among the important properties that logical systems can have are:
 Consistency, which means that no theorem of the system contradicts another.
 Bergmann, Merrie; Moor, James; Nelson, Jack (2009). The Logic Book (Fifth ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-353563-0.
 Validity, which means that the system's rules of proof never allow a false inference
from true premises.
 Completeness, which means that if a formula is true, it can be proven, i.e. is a
theorem of the system.
 Soundness, meaning that if any formula is a theorem of the system, it is true. This is
the converse of completeness. (Note that in a distinct philosophical use of the term, an
argument is sound when it is both valid and its premises are true).[10]
Some logical systems do not have all four properties. As an example, Kurt Gödel's
incompleteness theorems show that sufficiently complex formal systems of arithmetic cannot
be consistent and complete.
The subject of semantics is shared by philosophy with several other disciplines. This fact
causes philosophers to conflate this issue. They imagine that they are doing philosophy while
they already crossed into other disciplines dealing with semantics.
Early modern logic defined semantics purely as a relation between ideas. This view
(psychologism) was taken to the extreme in the nineteenth century, and is generally held by
modern logicians to signify a low point in the decline of logic before the twentieth century.
Modern semantics is in some ways closer to the medieval view, in rejecting such
psychological truth-conditions. However, the introduction of quantification, needed to solve
the problem of multiple generality, rendered impossible the kind of subject-predicate analysis
that underlies medieval semantics. The main modern approach is model-theoretic semantics,
based on Alfred Tarski's semantic theory of truth. The approach assumes that the meaning of
the various parts of the propositions are given by the possible ways we can give a recursively
specified group of interpretation functions from them to some predefined mathematical
domains: an interpretation of first-order predicate logic is given by a mapping from terms to a
universe of individuals, and a mapping from propositions to the truth values "true" and
"false". Model-theoretic semantics is one of the fundamental concepts of model theory.
Modern semantics also admits rival approaches, such as the proof-theoretic semantics that
associates the meaning of propositions with the roles that they can play in inferences, an
approach that ultimately derives from the work of Gerhard Gentzen on structural proof theory
and is heavily influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy, especially his aphorism
"meaning is use".
In logic, the semantics of logic is the study of the semantics, or interpretations, of formal and
(idealizations of) natural languages usually trying to capture the pre-theoretic notion of
entailment. Semantics is the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There
are a number of branches and sub-branches of semantics, including formal semantics, which
studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form,
lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual
semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

Simple Definition of semantics

11
  : the study of the meanings of words and phrases in language
 : the meanings of words and phrases in a particular context
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics
Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikos, "significant")[1][2] is primarily the
linguistic, and also philosophical study of meaning—in language, programming languages,
formal logics, and semiotics. It focuses on the relationship between signifiers—like words,
phrases, signs, and symbols—and what they stand for, their denotation.
In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology
 σημαντικός. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the
Perseus Project
 The word is derived from the Ancient Greek word σημαντικός (semantikos), "related to
meaning, significant", from σημαίνω semaino, "to signify, to indicate", which is from σῆμα
sema, "sign, mark, token". The plural is used in analogy with words similar to physics, which
was in the neuter plural in Ancient Greek and meant "things relating to nature".
Some of the theories in semantics are -
 5.1 Model theoretic semantics
 5.2 Formal (or truth-conditional) semantics
 5.3 Lexical and conceptual semantics
 5.4 Lexical semantics
 5.5 Computational semantics
The study of semantics form part of the subject-matter of several disciplines, eg
semiotics, linguistics, logic, psychology, cognitive semantics, hermeneutics,
computational semantics (programming languages), etc. This fact explains why and how
easy it is for philosophers exploring this subject to become distracted from philosophizing
and involved in other, non-philosophical discourses and disciplines.
A few words on another, related topic, namely Asemic writing is a wordless open
semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic
content".With the non-specificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning
which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one
would deduce meaning from an abstract work of art.
The importance of this idea in this context is, that it shows how easy it is to cross into the
other discourses or disciplines. Asemic writing for example can be practised and
investigated by several disciplines, for example visual art. I personally are involved in
this as a visual artist, so I speak from experience.
 False writing system
 Graphology
 History of writing
 Lorem ipsum
 Lyrical abstraction
 Nonverbal communication
 Rorschach test
 Seme (semantics)
 Variable (mathematics)

12
 "TwentyFourHoursOnline". TwentyFourHoursOnline.
  "Tim Gaze. Asemic Magazine". Asemic Magazine.
 From Greek: asemos (αόεμoβ)= without sign, unmarked, obscure, or ignoble.
 "Nick Pelling, Cipher Mysteries Blog: Review of "An Anthology of Asemic Writing"…
2013/09/22". Archived from the original on September 14, 2014.
  "moria". Moriapoetry.com. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  "Asemic writing at The Hahndorf Academy".
  "The First Asemic Writing Exhibit In Russia".
  "Asemic Show at the Spiral, Malta".
  "First Asemic Writing Exhibit In Mexico".
  "Asemic Scapes by Sarah Schneider". Dezeen. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  "suckerPUNCH   » Asemic ForestsuckerPUNCH". SUCKERPUNCHDAILY.COM.
Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  "The Post-Literate (R)Evolution". Post-literate.tumblr.com. Retrieved 10 November
2014.
  "Asemic AI".
  "SCRIPTjr.nl". SCRIPTjr.nl. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  Sterling, Bruce (July 13, 2009). "Web Semantics: Asemic writing". Wired.com.
Retrieved February 29, 2016.
  "The Commonline Journal: Without Words: An Interview with Tim Gaze".
Commonlinejournal.com. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  "Gammm: le scritture asemantiche di irma blank / gillo dorfles. 1974". Marco
Giovenale with English translation by Nerida Newbigin, 2014.
 "asemic-writing-matox". Post Graffiti :: Urban Skins. Retrieved 10 November 2014.

Asemic gif animation by Tony Burhouse and Michael Jacobson

13
It looks like writing, but we can't quite read it.
I call works like this "asemic writing".
Asemic writing seems to be a gigantic, unexplored territory.
Asemic writing has been made by poets, writers, painters, calligraphers, children, and
scribblers, all around the world. Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly
when testing a new pen.
Educators talk about children going through distinct stages of "mock letters",
"pseudowriting" and so on, when they're learning to write. Many of us made asemic writing
before we were able to write words.
Looking at asemic writing does something to us. Some examples have pictograms or
ideograms, which suggest a meaning through their shape. Others take us for a ride along their
curves. We like some, we dislike others.
They tend to have no fixed meaning. Their meaning is open. Every viewer can arrive at a
personal, absolutely correct interpretation.
Asemic writing has been presented by means of books, paintings, scrolls, single pages,
mailed envelopes, walls, cinema, television and computers, particularly via the internet.
Henri Michaux, who wrote the piece up above, was a poet and a writer and a painter.

Three more ideas or associated topics that lead philosophers in becoming involved in the
subject-matter and research in other disciplines or discourses –

Reason -
Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing
and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on

14
new or existing information.[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human
activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered
to be a definitive characteristic of human nature.[ Reason, or as aspect of it, is sometimes
referred to as rationality.
Reasoning is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reasoning may be subdivided
into forms of logical reasoning (forms associated with the strict sense): deductive reasoning,
inductive reasoning, abductive reasoning; and other modes of reasoning considered more
informal, such as intuitive reasoning and verbal reasoning. Along these lines, a distinction is
often drawn between discursive reason, reason proper, and intuitive reason,in which the
reasoning process—however valid—tends toward the personal and the opaque. Although in
many social and political settings logical and intuitive modes of reason may clash, in others
contexts, intuition and formal reason are seen as complementary, rather than adversarial as,
for example, in mathematics, where intuition is often a necessary building block in the
creative process of achieving the hardest form of reason, a formal proof.
Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a
related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to
think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely
identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and
institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.
In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or
justifies some event, phenomenon, or behavior.The field of logic studies ways in which
human beings reason formally through argument.
Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people
reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect
the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may
or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the question of
whether animals other than humans can reason.
 Etymology and related words
 2 Philosophical history
 2.1 Classical philosophy
 2.2 Subject-centred reason in early modern philosophy
 2.3 Substantive and formal reason
 2.4 The critique of reason
 3 Reason compared to related concepts
 3.1 Compared to logic
 3.2 Reason compared to cause-and-effect thinking, and symbolic thinking
 3.3 Reason, imagination, mimesis, and memory
 3.4 Logical reasoning methods and argumentation
o 3.4.1 Deductive reasoning
o 3.4.2 Inductive reasoning
o 3.4.3 Abductive reasoning
o 3.4.4 Analogical reasoning
o 3.4.5 Fallacious reasoning
 4 Traditional problems raised concerning reason
 4.1 Reason versus truth, and "first principles"

15
  4.2 Reason versus emotion or passion
 4.3 Reason versus faith or tradition
 5 Reason in particular fields of study
 5.1 Reason in political philosophy and ethics
 5.2 Psychology
o 5.2.1 Behavioral experiments on human reasoning
o 5.2.2 Developmental studies of children's reasoning
o 5.2.3 Neuroscience of reasoning
 5.3 Computer science
o 5.3.1 Automated reasoning
o 5.3.2 Meta-reasoning
 5.4 Evolution of reason
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason
 "So We Need Something Else for Reason to Mean", International Journal of
Philosophical Studies 8: 3, 271 — 295.
  Compare: MacIntyre, Alasdair (2013). Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human
Beings Need the Virtues. The Paul Carus Lectures. Open Court. ISBN  9780812697056.
Retrieved 2014-12-01. [...] the exercise of independent practical reasoning is one essential
constituent to full human flourishing.
  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6 – The Intellectual Virtues
  Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" in The Essential Foucault, eds. Paul
Rabinow and Nikolas Rose, New York: The New Press, 2003, 43-57. See also Nikolas
Kompridis, "The Idea of a New Beginning: A Romantic Source of Normativity and
Freedom," in Philosophical Romanticism, New York: Routledge, 2006, 32-59; "So We Need
Something Else for Reason to Mean", International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8: 3,
271 — 295.
  Merriam-Webster.com Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of reason
  Hintikka, J. "Philosophy of logic". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert, "logos", A Greek-English Lexicon. For
etymology of English "logic" see any dictionary such as the Merriam Webster entry for logic.
  Lewis, Charlton; Short, Charles, "ratio", A Latin Dictionary
  See Merriam Webster "rational" and Merriam Webster "reasonable".
  Habermas, Jürgen (1990). The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
  Kirk; Raven; Schofield (1983), The Presocratic Philosophers (second ed.),
Cambridge University Press. See pages 204 and 235.
  Nicomachean Ethics Book 1.
  Davidson, Herbert (1992), Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect, Oxford
University Press, page 3.
  Moore, Edward, "Plotinus", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  Dreyfus, Hubert. "Telepistemology: Descartes' Last Stand". socrates.berkeley.edu.
Retrieved February 23, 2011.
  Descartes, "Second Meditation".
  Hobbes, Thomas, Molesworth, ed., De Corpore: "We must not therefore think that
computation, that is, ratiocination, has place only in numbers, as if man were distinguished
from other living creatures (which is said to have been the opinion of Pythagoras) by nothing
but the faculty of numbering; for magnitude, body, motion, time, degrees of quality, action,

16
conception, proportion, speech and names (in which all the kinds of philosophy consist) are
capable of addition and substraction [sic]. Now such things as we add or substract, that is,
which we put into an account, we are said to consider, in Greek λογίζεσθαι [logizesthai], in
which language also συλλογίζεσθι [syllogizesthai] signifies to compute, reason, or reckon."
  Hobbes, Thomas, "VII. Of the ends, or resolutions of discourse", The English Works
of Thomas Hobbes, 3 (Leviathan) and Hobbes, Thomas, "IX. Of the several subjects of
knowledge", The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, 3 (Leviathan)
  Locke, John (1824) [1689], "XXVII On Identity and Diversity", An Essay concerning
Human Understanding Part 1, The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes (12th ed.),
Rivington
  Hume, David, "I.IV.VI. Of Personal Identity", A Treatise of Human Nature
  Hume, David, "II.III.III. Of the influencing motives of the will.", A Treatise of Human
Nature
  Hume, David, "I.III.VII (footnote) Of the Nature of the Idea Or Belief", A Treatise of
Human Nature
  Hume, David, "I.III.XVI. Of the reason of animals", A Treatise of Human Nature
  Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Critique of Practical Reason.
  Michael Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2009.
  Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the
Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed. Hackett. p.  30. ISBN  0-87220-166-X.
  See Velkley, Richard (2002), "On Kant's Socratism", Being After Rousseau,
University of Chicago Press and Kant's own first preface to The Critique of Pure Reason.
  Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1995.
  Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the
Rationalization of Society, translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.
  Nikolas Kompridis, Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and
Future, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. See also Nikolas Kompridis, "So We Need
Something Else for Reason to Mean", International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8:3,
271-295.
  Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (Harvard University Press, 1997), 12; 15.
  Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?", The Essential Foucault, New York: The
New Press, 2003, 43-57.
  Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Vintage, 1979, ISBN 0-394-74502-7
  Aristotle, Complete Works (2 volumes), Princeton, 1995, ISBN 0-691-09950-2
  See this Perseus search, and compare English translations. and see LSJ dictionary
entry for λογικός, section II.2.b.
  See the Treatise of Human Nature of David Hume, Book I, Part III, Sect. XVI.
  Locke, John (1824) [1689], "XVII Of Reason", An Essay concerning Human
Understanding Part 2 and Other Writings, The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, 2
(12th ed.), Rivington
  Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the
Brain, W.W. Norton & Company, 1998, ISBN 0-393-31754-4
  Leviathan Chapter IV: "The Greeks have but one word, logos, for both speech and
reason; not that they thought there was no speech without reason, but no reasoning without
speech"
  Posterior Analytics II.19.
  See for example Ruth M.J. Byrne (2005). The Rational Imagination: How People
Create Counterfactual Alternatives to Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

17
  De Anima III.i-iii; On Memory and Recollection, On Dreams
  Mimesis in modern academic writing, starting with Erich Auerbach, is a technical
word, which is not necessarily exactly the same in meaning as the original Greek. See
Mimesis.
  Origins of the Modern Mind p.172
  Jacob Klein A Commentary on the Meno Ch.5
  Jacob Klein A Commentary on the Meno p.122
  Origins of the Modern Mind p.169
  "Introduction" to the translation of Poetics by Davis and Seth Benardete p. xvii, xxviii
  Davis is here using "poetic" in an unusual sense, questioning the contrast in Aristotle
between action (praxis, the praktikē) and making (poēsis, the poētikē): "Human [peculiarly
human] action is imitation of action because thinking is always rethinking. Aristotle can
define human beings as at once rational animals, political animals, and imitative animals
because in the end the three are the same."
  Aristotle On Memory 450a 15-16.
  Jacob Klein A Commentary on the Meno p.109
  Aristotle Hist. Anim. I.1.488b.25-26.
  Jacob Klein A Commentary on the Meno p. 112
  The Origins of the Modern Mind p.173 see also A Mind So Rare p.140-1
  Jeffrey, Richard. 1991. Formal logic: its scope and limits, (3rd ed.). New York:
McGraw-Hill:1.
  Walton, Douglas N. (2014). "Argumentation schemes for argument from analogy". In
Ribeiro, Henrique Jales. Systematic approaches to argument by analogy. Argumentation
library. 25. Cham; New York: Springer Verlag. pp. 23–40. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-06334-
8_2. ISBN 9783319063331. OCLC 884441074.
  Vickers, John (2009). "The Problem of Induction". The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
  Example: Aristotle Metaphysics 981b: τὴν ὀνομαζομένην σοφίαν περὶ τὰ πρῶτα αἴτια
καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς ὑπολαμβάνουσι πάντες: ὥστε, καθάπερ εἴρηται πρότερον, ὁ μὲν ἔμπειρος τῶν
ὁποιανοῦν ἐχόντων αἴσθησιν εἶναι δοκεῖ σοφώτερος, ὁ δὲ τεχνίτης τῶν ἐμπείρων,
χειροτέχνου δὲ ἀρχιτέκτων, αἱ δὲ θεωρητικαὶ τῶν ποιητικῶν μᾶλλον. English: "...what is
called Wisdom is concerned with the primary causes and principles, so that, as has been
already stated, the man of experience is held to be wiser than the mere possessors of any
power of sensation, the artist than the man of experience, the master craftsman than the
artisan; and the speculative sciences to be more learned than the productive."
  Metaphysics 1009b ποῖα οὖν τούτων ἀληθῆ ἢ ψευδῆ, ἄδηλον: οὐθὲν γὰρ μᾶλλον τάδε
ἢ τάδε ἀληθῆ, ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοίως. διὸ Δημόκριτός γέ φησιν ἤτοι οὐθὲν εἶναι ἀληθὲς ἢ ἡμῖν γ᾽
ἄδηλον. English "Thus it is uncertain which of these impressions are true or false; for one
kind is no more true than another, but equally so. And hence Democritus says that either there
is no truth or we cannot discover it."
  For example Aristotle Metaphysics 983a: ἐπεὶ δὲ φανερὸν ὅτι τῶν ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτίων δεῖ
λαβεῖν ἐπιστήμην （τότε γὰρ εἰδέναι φαμὲν ἕκαστον, ὅταν τὴν πρώτην αἰτίαν οἰώμεθα
γνωρίζειν） English "It is clear that we must obtain knowledge of the primary causes,
because it is when we think that we understand its primary cause that we claim to know
each particular thing."
  Example: Nicomachean Ethics 1139b: ἀμφοτέρων δὴ τῶν νοητικῶν μορίων ἀλήθεια
τὸ ἔργον. καθ᾽ ἃς οὖν μάλιστα ἕξεις ἀληθεύσει ἑκάτερον, αὗται ἀρεταὶ ἀμφοῖν. English The
attainment of truth is then the function of both the intellectual parts of the soul. Therefore
their respective virtues are those dispositions that will best qualify them to attain truth.
  Example: Plato Republic 490b: μιγεὶς τῷ ὄντι ὄντως, γεννήσας νοῦν καὶ ἀλήθειαν,

18
γνοίη English: "Consorting with reality really, he would beget intelligence and truth, attain to
knowledge"
  "This quest for the beginnings proceeds through sense perception, reasoning, and
what they call noesis, which is literally translated by "understanding" or intellect," and which
we can perhaps translate a little bit more cautiously by "awareness," an awareness of the
mind's eye as distinguished from sensible awareness." "Progress or Return" in An
Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss. (Expanded version of
Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss, 1975.) Ed. Hilail Gilden. Detroit: Wayne
State UP, 1989.
  However, the empiricism of Aristotle must certainly be doubted. For example in
Metaphysics 1009b, cited above, he criticizes people who think knowledge might not be
possible because, "They say that the impression given through sense-perception is necessarily
true; for it is on these grounds that both Empedocles and Democritus and practically all the
rest have become obsessed by such opinions as these."
  G.W.F. Hegel The Philosophy of History, p. 9, Dover Publications Inc., ISBN 0-486-
20112-0; 1st ed. 1899
  Velkley, Richard (2002), "Speech. Imagination, Origins: Rousseau and the Political
Animal", Being after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question, University of Chicago
Press
  Rousseau (1997), "Preface", in Gourevitch, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations
of Inequality Among Men or Second Discourse, Cambridge University Press
  Velkley, Richard (2002), "Freedom, Teleology, and Justification of Reason", Being
after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question, University of Chicago Press
  Plattner, Marc (1997), "Rousseau and the Origins of Nationalism", The Legacy of
Rousseau, University of Chicago Press
  Dawkins, Richard (2008-01-16). The God Delusion (Reprint ed.). Mariner Books.
ISBN 9780618918249. Scientists... see the fight for evolution as only one battle in a larger
war: a looming war between supernaturalism on the one side and rationality on the other.
  Strauss, Leo, "Progress or Return", An Introduction to Political Philosophy
  Locke, John (1824) [1689], "XVIII Of Faith and Reason, and their distinct
Provinces.", An Essay concerning Human Understanding Part 2 and Other Writings, The
Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, 2 (An Essay concerning Human Understanding Part
2 and Other Writings) (12th ed.), Rivington
  Plantinga, Alvin (2011-12-09). Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and
Naturalism (1 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN  9780199812097.
  Natural Signs and Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments (Reprint
ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012-12-15. ISBN  9780199661077.
  "Stephen Jay Gould, "Nonoverlapping Magisteria," 1997".
www.stephenjaygould.org. Retrieved 2016-04-06. To say it for all my colleagues and for the
umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply
cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of
nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists.
  Dawkins, Richard (2008-01-16). "4". The God Delusion (Reprint ed.). Mariner
Books. ISBN 9780618918249. This sounds terrific, right up until you give it a moment's
thought. You then realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a
scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of
science. A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one
without, and it would be a scientific difference. God could clinch the matter in his favour at
any moment by staging a spectacular demonstration of his powers, one that would satisfy the
exacting standards of science. Even the infamous Templeton Foundation recognized that God

19
is a scientific hypothesis — by funding double-blind trials to test whether remote prayer
would speed the recovery of heart patients. It didn't, of course, although a control group who
knew they had been prayed for tended to get worse (how about a class action suit against the
Templeton Foundation?) Despite such well-financed efforts, no evidence for God's existence
has yet appeared.
  Moreland, J.P. "Consciousness and the Existence of God: A Theistic Argument".
Routledge. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
  "The Meaning of Life as Narrative: A New Proposal for Interpreting Philosophy's
'Primary' Question - Joshua W. Seachris - Philo (Philosophy Documentation Center)".
www.pdcnet.org. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
  Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition
(60067th ed.). University of Notre Dame Press. 1991-08-31. ISBN 9780268018771.
  Taylor, Charles (2007-09-20). A Secular Age (1st ed.). The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press. ISBN  9780674026766.
  When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought
(58760th ed.). IVP Academic. 2009-05-21. ISBN 9780830829231.
  Shestov, Lev (1968-01-01). Athens and Jerusalem. Simon and Schuster.
  "Progress or Return" in An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo
Strauss. (Expanded version of Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss, 1975.) Ed.
Hilail Gilden. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1989.
  Bhagavad Gita, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan: "Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the
union of reason and intuition that can not be defined but is only to be experienced."
  Politics I.2.1252b15
  Manktelow, K.I. 1999. Reasoning and Thinking (Cognitive Psychology: Modular
Course.). Hove, Sussex:Psychology Press
  Johnson-Laird, P.N. & Byrne, R.M.J. (1991). Deduction. Hillsdale: Erlbaum
  Johnson-Laird, P.N. (2006). How we reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  Byrne, R.M.J. (2005). The Rational Imagination: How People Create Counterfactual
Alternatives to Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  Demetriou, A. (1998). Cognitive development. In A. Demetriou, W. Doise, K.F.M.
van Lieshout (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology (pp. 179-269). London: Wiley.
  Costantini, Stefania (2002), "Meta-reasoning: A Survey", Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, 2408/2002 (65), doi:10.1007/3-540-45632-5_11
  "Dan Sperber on the Enigma of Reason". Philosophy Bites. 25 September 2011.
 Cohen, Patricia (14 June 2011). "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth".
The New York Times. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
Thought and thinking

Thought –

 1 Nature of thought
 2 Types of thoughts
 Concept
o Abstract concept
o Concrete concept
 Conjecture

20
  Decision (see § Decision-making below)
 Definition
 Explanation
 Hypothesis
 Idea
 Logical argument
 Logical assertion
 Mental image
 Percept / Perception
 Premise
 Proposition
 Syllogism
 Thought experiment
Contents of Though
 Argument
 Belief
 Data
 Information
 Knowledge
 Schema

 3 Types of thought (thinking)

 Analysis
 Awareness
 Calculation
o Estimation
 Categorization
 Causal thinking
 Cognitive restructuring
 Computational thinking
 Convergent thinking
 Counterfactual thinking
 Critical thinking
 Divergent thinking
 Evaluation
 Integrative thinking
 Internal monologue (surface thoughts)
 Introspection
 Learning and memory
 Parallel thinking
 Prediction
 Recollection
 Stochastic thinking
 Strategic thinking
 Visual thinking

Classifications of thought

21
  Bloom's taxonomy
 Dual process theory
 Fluid and crystallized intelligence
 Higher-order thinking
 Theory of multiple intelligences
 Three-stratum theory
 Williams' taxonomy

Creative processes
 Brainstorming
 Cognitive module
 Creativity
 Creative problem solving
 Creative writing
 Creativity techniques
 Design thinking
 Imagination
 Lateral thinking
 Noogenesis
 Six Thinking Hats
 Speech act
 Stream of consciousness
 Thinking outside the box

Decision-making
Main article: Decision-making
 Choice
 Cybernetics
 Decision theory
 Executive system
 Goals and goal setting
 Judgement
 Planning
 Rational choice theory
 Speech act
 Value (personal and cultural)
 Value judgment

Erroneous thinking
See also: Error and Human error
 Black and white thinking
 Catastrophization
 Cognitive bias
 Cognitive distortions
 Dysrationalia

22
  Emotional reasoning
 Exaggeration
 Foolishness
 Fallacies (see also List of fallacies)
o Fallacies of definition
o Logical fallacy
 Groupthink
 Irrationality
 Linguistic errors
 Magical thinking
 Minimisation (psychology)
 Motivated reasoning
 Rationalization (psychology)
 Rhetoric
 Straight and Crooked Thinking (book)
 Target fixation
 Wishful thinking

Emotional intelligence (emotionally based thinking)

Main article: Emotional intelligence
 Acting
 Affect logic
 Allophilia
 Attitude (psychology)
 Curiosity
 Elaboration likelihood model
 Emotions and feelings
 Emotion and memory
 Emotional contagion
 Empathy
 Epiphany (feeling)
 Mood (psychology)
 Motivation
 Propositional attitude
 Rhetoric
 Self actualization
 Self control
 Self-esteem
 Self-determination theory
 Social cognition
 Will (philosophy)
 Volition (psychology)

Problem solving
Main article: Problem solving
 Problem solving steps
o Problem finding

23
 o Problem shaping
 Process of elimination
 Systems thinking
o Critical systems thinking
 Problem-solving strategy – steps one would use to find the problem(s) that are in the
way to getting to one’s own goal. Some would refer to this as the ‘problem-solving
cycle’ (Bransford & Stein, 1993). In this cycle one will recognize the problem, define
the problem, develop a strategy to fix the problem, organize the knowledge of the
problem cycle, figure-out the resources at the user's disposal, monitor one's progress,
and evaluate the solution for accuracy.
o Abstraction – solving the problem in a model of the system before applying it
to the real system
o Analogy – using a solution that solves an analogous problem
o Brainstorming – (especially among groups of people) suggesting a large
number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing them until an
optimum solution is found
o Divide and conquer – breaking down a large, complex problem into smaller,
solvable problems
o Hypothesis testing – assuming a possible explanation to the problem and
trying to prove (or, in some contexts, disprove) the assumption
o Lateral thinking – approaching solutions indirectly and creatively
o Means-ends analysis – choosing an action at each step to move closer to the
goal
o Method of focal objects – synthesizing seemingly non-matching
characteristics of different objects into something new
o Morphological analysis – assessing the output and interactions of an entire
system
o Proof – try to prove that the problem cannot be solved. The point where the
proof fails will be the starting point for solving it
o Reduction – transforming the problem into another problem for which
solutions exist
o Research – employing existing ideas or adapting existing solutions to similar
problems
o Root cause analysis – identifying the cause of a problem
o Trial-and-error – testing possible solutions until the right one is found
o Troubleshooting –
 Problem-solving methodology
o 5 Whys
o Decision cycle
o Eight Disciplines Problem Solving
o GROW model
o How to Solve It
o Learning cycle
o OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, and act)
o PDCA (plan–do–check–act)
o Problem structuring methods
o RPR Problem Diagnosis (rapid problem resolution)
o TRIZ (in Russian: Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch, "theory of
solving inventor's problems")

24
Reasoning
Main article: Reasoning
 Abstract thinking
 Adaptive reasoning
 Analogical reasoning
 Analytic reasoning
 Case-based reasoning
 Critical thinking
 Defeasible reasoning – from authority: if p then (defeasibly) q
 Diagrammatic reasoning – reasoning by means of visual representations. Visualizing
concepts and ideas with of diagrams and imagery instead of by linguistic or algebraic
means
 Emotional reasoning (erroneous) – a cognitive distortion in which emotion
overpowers reason, to the point the subject is unwilling or unable to accept the reality
of a situation because of it.
 Fallacious reasoning (erroneous) – logical errors
 Heuristics
 Historical thinking
 Intuitive reasoning
 Lateral thinking
 Logic / Logical reasoning
o Abductive reasoning – from data and theory: p and q are correlated, and q is
sufficient for p; hence, if p then (abducibly) q as cause
o Deductive reasoning – from meaning postulate, axiom, or contingent
assertion: if p then q (i.e., q or not-p)
o Inductive reasoning – theory formation; from data, coherence, simplicity, and
confirmation: (inducibly) "if p then q"; hence, if p then (deducibly-but-
revisably) q
o Inference
 Moral reasoning – process in which an individual tries to determine the difference
between what is right and what is wrong in a personal situation by using logic.This is
an important and often daily process that people use in an attempt to do the right
thing. Every day for instance, people are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to
lie in a given situation. People make this decision by reasoning the morality of the
action and weighing that against its consequences.
 Probabilistic reasoning – from combinatorics and indifference: if p then (probably) q
 Proportional reasoning – using "the concept of proportions when analyzing and
solving a mathematical situation."
 Rational thinking
 Semiosis
 Statistical reasoning – from data and presumption: the frequency of qs among ps is
high (or inference from a model fit to data); hence, (in the right context) if p then
(probably) q
 Synthetic reasoning
 Verbal reasoning – understanding and reasoning using concepts framed in words
 Visual reasoning – process of manipulating one's mental image of an object in order
to reach a certain conclusion – for example, mentally constructing a piece of
machinery to experiment with different mechanisms

25
Machine thought
Main articles: Machine thought and Outline of artificial intelligence
 Artificial creativity
 Automated reasoning
o Commonsense reasoning
o Model-based reasoning
o Opportunistic reasoning
o Qualitative reasoning – automated reasoning about continuous aspects of the
physical world, such as space, time, and quantity, for the purpose of problem
solving and planning using qualitative rather than quantitative information
o Spatial–temporal reasoning
o Textual case based reasoning
 Computer program (recorded machine thought instructions)
 Human-based computation
 Natural language processing (outline)

Organizational thought
Organizational thought (thinking by organizations)
 Management information system
 Organizational communication
 Organizational planning
o Strategic planning
 Strategic thinking
 Systems thinking

 4 Aspects of the thinker

Aspects of the thinker which may affect (help or hamper) his or her thinking:
 Attitude
 Cognitive style
 Common sense
 Experience
 Instinct
 Intelligence
 Metacognition
 Mind's eye
 Mindset
 Rationality
 Wisdom
o Sapience

 5 Properties of thought
 Accuracy
 Cogency
 Dogma
 Effectiveness

26
  Efficacy
 Efficiency
 Freethought
 Frugality
 Meaning
 Prudence
 Rights
 Skepticism
 Soundness
 Validity
 Value theory
 Wrong

 6 Fields that study thought

 Linguistics
 Philosophy
o Logic
o Philosophy of mind
 Neuroscience
o Cognitive science
o Psychology
 Cognitive psychology
 Social psychology
o Psychiatry
 Mathematics
 Operations research

 7 Thought tools and thought research

 Cognitive model
 Design tool
 Diagram
o Argument map
o Concept map
o Mind map
 DSRP
 Intelligence amplification
 Language
 Meditation
 Six Thinking Hats
 Synectics

 8 History of thinking
 History of artificial intelligence
 History of cognitive science
 History of creativity
 History of ideas
 History of logic

27
  History of psychometrics

 9 Nootropics (cognitive enhancers and smart drugs)

 Attribution theory
 Communication
 Concept testing
 Evaporating Cloud
 Fifth discipline
 Groupthink
 Group synergy
 Ideas bank
 Interpretation
 Learning organization
 Metaplan
 Operations research
 Organization development
 Organizational communication
 Organizational culture
 Organizational ethics
 Organizational learning
 Rhetoric
 Smart mob
 Theory of Constraints
 Think tank
 Wisdom of crowds

 10 Teaching methods and skills

 Active learning
 Classical conditioning
 Directed listening and thinking activity
 Discipline
 Learning theory (education)
 Mentoring
 Operant conditioning
 Problem-based learning
 Punishment
 Reinforcement

 11 Awards related to thinking

 12 Organizations
  Association for Automated Reasoning
 Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking
 International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning
 High IQ societies
 Mega Society
 Mensa
 Mind Sports Organisations

28
  World Mind Sports Games
 Think tanks
 13 Media
 14 Persons associated with thinking
List of cognitive scientists
 Aaron T. Beck
 Edward de Bono
 David D. Burns – author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and The Feeling
Good Handbook. Burns popularized Aaron T. Beck's cognitive behavioral therapy
(CBT) when his book became a best seller during the 1980s.
 Tony Buzan
 Noam Chomsky
 Albert Ellis
 Howard Gardner
 Douglas Hofstadter
 Ray Kurzweil
 Marvin Minsky
 Steven Pinker
 Baruch Spinoza
 Robert Sternberg

 15 Related concepts
 Cognition
 Knowledge
 Multiple intelligences
 Strategy
 Structure
 System
 Attention
 Cognition
 Cognitive dissonance
 Cognitive map
 Concept
 Concept map
 Conceptual framework
 Conceptual model
 Consciousness
 Domain knowledge
 Heuristics in judgment and decision making
 Information
 Intelligence
 Intuition
 Knowledge
 Memory suppression
 Mental model
 Metaknowledge (knowledge about knowledge)
 Mind map
 Mindfulness (psychology)

29
  Model (abstract)
 Percept
 Perception
 Self-awareness
 Self-concept
 Self-consciousness
 Self-knowledge
 Self-realization
 Sentience
 Situational awareness
 Understanding
 Autodidacticism
 Biofeedback
 Cognitive dissonance
 Dual-coding theory
 Eidetic memory (total recall)
 Emotion and memory
 Empiricism
 Feedback
 Feedback loop
 Free association
 Heuristics
 Hyperthymesia
 Hypnosis
 Hypothesis
 Imitation
 Inquiry
 Knowledge management
 Language acquisition
 Memorization
 Memory and aging
 Memory inhibition
 Memory-prediction framework
 Method of loci
 Mnemonics
 Neurofeedback
 Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
 Observation
 Pattern recognition
 Question
 Reading
 Recall
 Recognition
 Recollection (recall)
 Scientific method
 Self-perception theory
 Speed reading
 Study Skills
 Subvocalization
 Transfer of learning

30
  Transfer of training
 Visual learning


Thinking –
 Artificial intelligence
o Outline of artificial intelligence
 Human intelligence
o Outline of human intelligence
 Neuroscience
o Outline of neuroscience
 Psychology
o Gestalt psychology (theory of mind)
o Outline of psychology

 Adaptation
 Association of Ideas
 Attacking Faulty Reasoning
 Autistic thinking (see Glossary of psychiatry)
 Backcasting
 Causality
 Chunking (psychology)
 Cognition
 Cognitive biology
 Cognitive computing
 Cognitive deficit
 Cognitive dissonance
 Cognitive linguistics
 Cognitive module
 Cognitive psychology
 Cognitive science
 Cognitive space
 Cognitive style
 Communicating
 Comparative cognition
 Concept-formation
 Conceptual metaphor
 Conceptual thinking
 Conscience
 Consciousness
 Constructive criticism
 Conversation
 Criticism
 Dereistic thinking (see Glossary of psychiatry)
 Design (and re-design)
 Dialectic
 Discovery (observation)
 Distinction (philosophy)

31
  Distributed cognition
 Distributed multi-agent reasoning system
 Educational assessment
 Emotion
 Empirical knowledge
 Empiricism
 Epistemology
 Evidential reasoning (disambiguation)
 Evidential reasoning approach
 Expectation (epistemic)
 Experimentation
 Explanation
 Extension (semantics)
 Facilitation (business)
 Fantasy
 Fideism
 Figure Reasoning Test
 Fuzzy logic
 Fuzzy-trace theory
 Generalizing
 Gestalt psychology
 Group cognition
 Heuristics in judgment and decision making
 Holism
 Human multitasking
 Human self-reflection
 Hypervigilance
 Identification (information)
 Inductive reasoning aptitude
 Intellect
 Intelligence (trait)
 1 Traits and aspects
 2 Emergence and evolution
 3 Augmented with technology
 4 Capacities
Cognition and mental processing
 Association
 Attention
 Belief
 Concept formation
o Conception
 Creativity
 Emotion
 Language
 Imagination
 Intellectual giftedness
 Introspection
 Memory
o Metamemory

32
 o Pattern recognition
 Metacognition
 Mental imagery
 Perception
 Reasoning
o Abductive reasoning
o Deductive reasoning
o Inductive reasoning
 Volition
o Action
o Problem solving

 5 Types of people, by intelligence

 Abstract thought
 Creativity
 Emotional intelligence
 Fluid and crystallized intelligence
 Knowledge
 Learning
 Malleability of intelligence
 Memory
o Working memory
 Moral intelligence
 Problem solving
 Reaction time
 Reasoning
 Risk intelligence
 Social intelligence
o Communication
 Spatial intelligence
 Spiritual intelligence
 Understanding
 Verbal intelligence
 Visual processing

 6 Models and theories

 Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory
 Fluid and crystallized intelligence
 General factor of intelligence
 Theory of multiple intelligences
 Triarchic theory of intelligence
 PASS theory of intelligence
 Parieto-frontal integration theory
 Vernon’s verbal-perceptual model
 g-VPR model

 7 Related factors
 Impact of health on intelligence

33
 Environment and intelligence
 Height and intelligence
 Nations and intelligence
 Neurological factors upon intelligence
 Race and intelligence
 History of the race and intelligence controversy
 Religiosity and intelligence
 8 Fields that study human intelligence
 Cognitive epidemiology
 Evolution of human intelligence
"A new understanding of the term "noogenesis" as an evolution of the intellect was proposed
by Alexey Eryomin. A hypothesis based on recapitulation theory links the evolution of the
human brain to the development of human civilization. The parallel between the amount of
people living on Earth and the amount of neurons becomes more and more obvious leading
us to viewing global intelligence as an analogy for human brain. All of the people living on
this planet have undoubtedly inherited the amazing cultural treasures of the past, be it
production, social and intellectual ones. We are genetically hardwired to be a sort of "live
RAM" of the global intellectual system. Alexey Eryomin suggests that humanity is moving
towards a unified self-contained informational and intellectual system. His research has
shown the probability of Super Intellect realizing itself as Global Intelligence on Earth. We
could get closer to understanding the most profound patterns and laws of the Universe if
these kinds of research were given enough attention. Also, the resemblance between the
individual human development and such of the whole human race has to be explored further
if we are to face some of the threats of the future».
Therefore, generalizing and summarizing:
"Noogenesis - the expansion process in space and development in time (evolution) of
intelligent systems (intelligent matter). Noogenesis represents a set of natural, interconnected,
characterized by a certain temporal sequence of structural and functional transformations of
the entire hierarchy and set of interacting among themselves on the basic structures and
processes ranging from the formation and separation of the rational system to the present (the
phylogenesis of the nervous systems of organisms; the evolution of humanity as autonomous
intelligent systems) or death (in the course of ontogenesis of the human brain)".

Interdisciplinary nature
 The term "noogenesis" can be used in a variety of fields i.e. medicine, biophysics,
semiotics, mathematics, information technology, psychology etc. thus making it a
truly cross-disciplinary one. In astrobiology noogenesis concerns the origin of
intelligent life and more specifically technological civilizations capable of
communicating with humans and or traveling to Earth The lack of evidence for the
existence of such extraterrestrial life creates the Fermi paradox.

Aspects of emergence and evolution of mind

34
To the parameters of the phenomenon "noo", "intellectus"
The emergence of the human mind is considered to be one of the five phenomena of
emergent evolution. To understand the mind, necessary to determine what the reasonable
person's thinking differs from other thinking beings. Such differences include the ability to
generate calculations, to combine dissimilar concepts, to use mental symbols, to think
abstractly. The knowledge of the phenomenon of intelligent systems - the emergence of
reason (noogenesis) boils down to:
 Emergence and evolution of the "sapiens" (phylogenesis);
 A conception of a new idea (insight, creativity synthesis, intuition, decision-making,
eureka);
 Development of an individual mind (ontogenesis );
 Appearance of the Global Intelligence concept.
Several published works which do not employ the term "noogenesis", however, address some
patterns in the emergence and functioning of the human intelligence: working memory
capacity ≥ 7, ability to predict, prognosis,hierarchical (6 layers neurons) system of
information analysis,[ consciousness, memory,generated and consumed information
properties etc. They also set the limits of several physiological aspects of human intelligence.

Aspects of evolution "sapiens"

Historical evolutionary development and emergence of H.sapiens as species, include
emergence of such concepts as anthropogenesis, phylogenesis, morphogenesis, cephalization,
systemogenesis ,cognition systems autonomy.
On the other hand, development of an individual’s intellect deals with concepts of
embryogenesis, ontogenesis,morphogenesis, neurogenesis, higher nervous function of
I.P.Pavlov and his philosophy of mind.Despite the fact that the morphofunctional maturity is
usually reached by the age of 13, the definitive functioning of the brain structures is not
complete until about 16–17 years of age.

The future of intelligence

Bioinformatics, genetic engineering, noopharmacology, cognitive load, brain stimulation, the
efficient use of altered states of consciousness, use of non-human cognition, information
technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI) are all believed to be effective methods of
intelligence advancement.

Issues and further research prospects

The development of the human brain, perception, cognition, memory and neuroplasticity are
unsolved problems in neuroscience. Several megaprojects are being carried out in the
American BRAIN Initiative and the European Human Brain Project in attempt to better our
understanding of the brain's functionality along with the intention to develop human
cognitive performance in the future with artificial intelligence, informational, communication
and cognitive technology.

35
See also

 Evolutionary biology portal

 Earth sciences portal

 Logic portal

 Mind and brain portal

 Neuroscience portal

 Psychology portal

 Thinking portal

 Autopoiesis
 Biological neural network
 Cognitive science
 Collective consciousness
 Collective intelligence
 Digital ecosystem
 Emergence
 Global brain
 Human evolution
 Information society
 Knowledge commons
 Knowledge ecosystem
 Digital ecology
 Knowledge management
 Knowledge tagging
 Management cybernetics
 Media ecology
 Mind
 Neuroinformatics
 Psychophysics
 Sensory system
 Technological singularity
 Social organism
 Sociology of knowledge
 Superorganism
 Territoriality (nonverbal communication)
 World Brain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noogenesis
 Heritability of IQ
 Mental chronometry
 Intelligence and public policy
 Behavioural genetics

36
  Human behavior genetics

 9 History
 Active intellect
 Cognition
 Cognitivism
 Downing effect
 Educational psychology
 Fertility and intelligence
 Individual differences psychology
 Intellectual giftedness
 Knowledge
 Mental event
 Mental operations
 Neurocognitive
 Passive intellect
 Sex and psychology

 10 Organizations
 11 Publications
  12 Scholars and researchers
 Intentionality
 Inventing
 Judging
 Kinesthetic learning
 Knowledge management
 Knowledge representation and reasoning
 Language
 Linguistics
 List of cognitive scientists
 List of creative thought processes
 List of emotional intelligence topics
 List of emotions
 List of organizational thought processes
 List of perception-related topics
 Mathematics Mechanization and Automated Reasoning Platform
 Mental function
 Mental model theory of reasoning
 Meta-analytic thinking
 Meta-ethical
 Methodic doubt
 Mimesis
 Mind
 Models of scientific inquiry
 Morphological analysis (problem-solving)
 Natural language processing
 Nonduality
 Nous
 Object pairing

37
  Pattern matching
 Personal experience
 Personality psychology
 Persuasion
 Philomath
 Philosophical analysis
 Philosophical method
 Planning
 Po (term)
 Practical reason
 Preconscious
 Prediction
 Procedural reasoning system
 Pseudoscience
 Pseudoskepticism
 Psychological projection
 Psychology of reasoning
 Qualitative Reasoning Group
 Rationality and Power
 Reasoning Mind
 Reasoning system
 Recognition primed decision
 Reflective disclosure
 Scientific method
 SEE-I
 Self-deception
 Semantic network
 Semantics
 Semiotics
 Sensemaking
 Situated cognition
 Situational awareness
 Skepticism
 Source criticism
 Spatial Cognition
 Speculative reason
 Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning
 Storytelling
 Stream of consciousness (psychology)
 Subconscious
 Substitution (logic)
 Suspicion (emotion)
 Theories
 Thinking processes (theory of constraints)
 Thought disorder
 Thought sonorization (see Glossary of psychiatry)
 Translation
 Truth
 Unconscious mind
 Understanding

38
  VPEC-T
 wikt:entrained thinking
 wikt:synthesis
 Working memory
 World disclosure
Thinking
 Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud (documentary)
 Critical-Creative Thinking and Behavioral Research Laboratory
 History of political thinking
 Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines
 Partial concurrent thinking aloud
 Po (lateral thinking)
 Six Thinking Hats
 SolidThinking
 Straight and Crooked Thinking
 Systematic Inventive Thinking
 The Art of Negative Thinking
 The Lake of Thinking
 The Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking
 The Magic of Thinking Big
 The Year of Magical Thinking
 Thinking about Consciousness
 Thinking about the immortality of the crab
 Thinking Allowed (PBS)
 Thinking Allowed
 Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl
 Thinking processes (Theory of Constraints)
 Thinking Skills Assessment
 Thinking, Fast and Slow
 Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
 Unified structured inventive thinking
 When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
 World Thinking Day
Lists
 List of neurobiology topics
 List of cognitive science topics
 List of philosophical theories
 List of psychology topics
 List of cognitive scientists
 Glossary of philosophical isms
 List of cognitive biases
 List of emotions
 List of memory biases
 List of mnemonics
 List of neurobiology topics
 List of NLP topics
 List of psychometric topics
 List of thought processes

39
References

Logic and rationality

 Outline of thought - topic tree that identifies many types of thoughts/thinking, types of
reasoning, aspects of thought, related fields, and more.
 Outline of human intelligence - topic tree presenting the traits, capacities, models, and
research fields of human intelligence, and more.
 As the study of argument is of clear importance to the reasons that we hold things to
be true, logic is of essential importance to rationality. Arguments may be logical if
they are "conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity",[1] while they
are rational according to the broader requirement that they are based on reason and
knowledge.
 Logic and rationality have each been taken as fundamental concepts in philosophy.
Philosophical rationalism in its most extreme form is the doctrine that knowledge can
ultimately be founded on pure reason, while logicism is the doctrine that
mathematical concepts, among others are reducible to pure logic.
  Forms of reasoning
  2 Critical thinking
 Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse.
Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment,[1]
it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a
methodical practice of doubt. The contemporary sense of critique has been largely
influenced by the Enlightenment critique of prejudice and authority, which
championed the emancipation and autonomy from religious and political authorities.
 The term 'critique' derives, via French, from Ancient Greek κριτική (kritikē), meaning
"the faculty of judgment", that is, discerning the value of persons or things
 Philosophy is the application of critical thought, and is the disciplined practice of
processing the theory/praxis problem. In philosophical contexts, such as law or
academics, critique is most influenced by Kant's use of the term to mean a reflective
examination of the validity and limits of a human capacity or of a set of philosophical
claims. This has been extended in modern philosophy to mean a systematic inquiry
into the conditions and consequences of a concept, a theory, a discipline, or an
approach and/or attempt to understand the limitations and validity of that. A critical
perspective, in this sense, is the opposite of a dogmatic one. Kant wrote:
 We deal with a concept dogmatically ... if we consider it as contained under another
concept of the object which constitutes a principle of reason and determine it in
conformity with this. But we deal with it merely critically if we consider it only in
reference to our cognitive faculties and consequently to the subjective conditions of
thinking it, without undertaking to decide anything about its object.
 Later thinkers such as Hegel used the word 'critique' in a broader way than Kant's
sense of the word, to mean the systematic inquiry into the limits of a doctrine or set of
concepts. This referential expansion led, for instance, to the formulation of the idea of
social critique, such as arose after Karl Marx's theoretical work delineated in his
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), which was a critique of the
then-current models of economic theory and thought of that time. Further critique can
then be applied after the fact, by using thorough critique as a basis for new argument.

40
 The idea of critique is elemental to legal, aesthetic, and literary theory and such
practices, such as in the analysis and evaluation of writings such as pictorial, musical,
or expanded textual works
 "critick". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September
2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment section 74.
  For an overview of philosophical conceptions of critique from Spinoza to Rancière
see K. de Boer and R. Sonderegger (eds.), Conceptions of Critique in Modern and
Contemporary Philosophy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012).
  Gianni Vattimo Postmodern criticism: postmodern critique in David Wood (1990)
Writing the future, pp.57-8
  David Ingram, Habermas: Introduction and Analysis, New York: Cornell University
Press, 2010.
  Michel Foucault, Was ist Kritik?, Berlin: Merve Verlag 1992. ISBN 3-88396-093-4
  Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dama Press,
1981

  3 Dialectic
  4 Illogicality
Another idea, topic or area of investigation that distracts philosophers from doing philosophy
and becoming involved in working in other disciplines is – arguments or argumentation.
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions
can be reached through logical reasoning; that is, claims based, soundly or not, on premises.
It includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion. It
studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings.
Argumentation includes debate and negotiation which are concerned with reaching mutually
acceptable conclusions. It also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in
which victory over an opponent is the primary goal. This art and science is often the means
by which people protect their beliefs or self-interests in rational dialogue, in common
parlance, and during the process of arguing.
Argumentation is used in law, for example in trials, in preparing an argument to be presented
to a court, and in testing the validity of certain kinds of evidence. Also, argumentation
scholars study the post hoc rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify
decisions they have made irrationally.

Contents
 1 Key components of argumentation
 Understanding and identifying arguments, either explicit or implied, and the goals of
the participants in the different types of dialogue.
 Identifying the premises from which conclusions are derived
 Establishing the "burden of proof" – determining who made the initial claim and is
thus responsible for providing evidence why his/her position merits acceptance.
 For the one carrying the "burden of proof", the advocate, to marshal evidence for
his/her position in order to convince or force the opponent's acceptance. The method

41
 by which this is accomplished is producing valid, sound, and cogent arguments,
devoid of weaknesses, and not easily attacked.
 In a debate, fulfillment of the burden of proof creates a burden of rejoinder. One must
try to identify faulty reasoning in the opponent's argument, to attack the
reasons/premises of the argument, to provide counterexamples if possible, to identify
any fallacies, and to show why a valid conclusion cannot be derived from the reasons
provided for his/her argument.

 2 Internal structure of arguments

Typically an argument has an internal structure, comprising the following
1. a set of assumptions or premises
2. a method of reasoning or deduction and
3. a conclusion or point.
An argument has one or more premises and one conclusion.
Often classical logic is used as the method of reasoning so that the conclusion follows
logically from the assumptions or support. One challenge is that if the set of assumptions is
inconsistent then anything can follow logically from inconsistency. Therefore, it is common
to insist that the set of assumptions be consistent. It is also good practice to require the set of
assumptions to be the minimal set, with respect to set inclusion, necessary to infer the
consequent. Such arguments are called MINCON arguments, short for minimal consistent.
Such argumentation has been applied to the fields of law and medicine. A second school of
argumentation investigates abstract arguments, where 'argument' is considered a primitive
term, so no internal structure of arguments is taken on account.
In its most common form, argumentation involves an individual and an interlocutor/or
opponent engaged in dialogue, each contending differing positions and trying to persuade
each other. Other types of dialogue in addition to persuasion are eristic, information seeking,
inquiry, negotiation, deliberation, and the dialectical method (Douglas Walton). The
dialectical method was made famous by Plato and his use of Socrates critically questioning
various characters and historical figures.

 3 Argumentation and the grounds of knowledge

Argumentation theory had its origins in foundationalism, a theory of knowledge
(epistemology) in the field of philosophy. It sought to find the grounds for claims in the
forms (logic) and materials (factual laws) of a universal system of knowledge. But argument
scholars gradually rejected Aristotle's systematic philosophy and the idealism in Plato and
Kant. They questioned and ultimately discarded the idea that argument premises take their
soundness from formal philosophical systems. The field thus broadened.
Karl R. Wallace's seminal essay, "The Substance of Rhetoric: Good Reasons" in the
Quarterly Journal of Speech (1963) 44, led many scholars to study "marketplace
argumentation" – the ordinary arguments of ordinary people. The seminal essay on
marketplace argumentation is Ray Lynn Anderson and C. David Mortensen's "Logic and
Marketplace Argumentation" Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (1967): 143–150. This line of
thinking led to a natural alliance with late developments in the sociology of knowledge.Some
scholars drew connections with recent developments in philosophy, namely the pragmatism

42
of John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Rorty has called this shift in emphasis "the linguistic
turn".
In this new hybrid approach argumentation is used with or without empirical evidence to
establish convincing conclusions about issues which are moral, scientific, epistemic, or of a
nature in which science alone cannot answer. Out of pragmatism and many intellectual
developments in the humanities and social sciences, "non-philosophical" argumentation
theories grew which located the formal and material grounds of arguments in particular
intellectual fields. These theories include informal logic, social epistemology,
ethnomethodology, speech acts, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of science, and
social psychology. These new theories are not non-logical or anti-logical. They find logical
coherence in most communities of discourse. These theories are thus often labelled
"sociological" in that they focus on the social grounds of knowledge.

 4 Approaches to argumentation in communication and informal logic

 5 Kinds of argumentation
 5.1 Conversational argumentation
 5.2 Mathematical argumentation
 5.3 Scientific argumentation
 Perhaps the most radical statement of the social grounds of scientific knowledge
appears in Alan G.Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1990). Gross holds that science is rhetorical "without remainder" meaning that
scientific knowledge itself cannot be seen as an idealized ground of knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is produced rhetorically, meaning that it has special epistemic
authority only insofar as its communal methods of verification are trustworthy. This
thinking represents an almost complete rejection of the foundationalism on which
argumentation was first based.
Remember the criticism of science by Feyerabend!
 5.4 Interpretive argumentation
 Interpretive argumentation is a dialogical process in which participants explore and/or
resolve interpretations often of a text of any medium containing significant ambiguity
in meaning.
 Interpretive argumentation is pertinent to the humanities, hermeneutics, literary
theory, linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, semiotics, analytic philosophy and
aesthetics. Topics in conceptual interpretation include aesthetic, judicial, logical and
religious interpretation. Topics in scientific interpretation include scientific modelling.

 5.5 Legal argumentation
 5.6 Political argumentation
 6 Psychological aspects
 7 Theories
 7.1 Argument fields
 Stephen E. Toulmin and Charles Arthur Willard have championed the idea of
argument fields, the former drawing upon Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of language
games, (Sprachspiel) the latter drawing from communication and argumentation
theory, sociology, political science, and social epistemology. For Toulmin, the term

43
 "field" designates discourses within which arguments and factual claims are
grounded. For Willard, the term "field" is interchangeable with "community",
"audience", or "readership".Along similar lines, G. Thomas Goodnight has studied
"spheres" of argument and sparked a large literature created by younger scholars
responding to or using his ideas. The general tenor of these field theories is that the
premises of arguments take their meaning from social communities.
 Field studies might focus on social movements, issue-centered publics (for instance,
pro-life versus pro-choice in the abortion dispute), small activist groups, corporate
public relations campaigns and issue management, scientific communities and
disputes, political campaigns, and intellectual traditions. In the manner of a
sociologist, ethnographer, anthropologist, participant-observer, and journalist, the
field theorist gathers and reports on real-world human discourses, gathering case
studies that might eventually be combined to produce high-order explanations of
argumentation processes. This is not a quest for some master language or master
theory covering all specifics of human activity. Field theorists are agnostic about the
possibility of a single grand theory and skeptical about the usefulness of such a
theory. Theirs is a more modest quest for "mid-range" theories that might permit
generalizations about families of discourses.

 7.2 Stephen E. Toulmin's contributions
o 7.2.1 An alternative to absolutism and relativism
 Toulmin has argued that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments)
has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic,
which advocates universal truth; thus absolutists believe that moral issues can be
resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By
contrast, Toulmin asserts that many of these so-called standard principles are
irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
 To describe his vision of daily life, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument
fields; in The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin states that some aspects of
arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other
aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-
invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the
field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument
are field invariant.
 Toulmin's theories resolve to avoid the defects of absolutism without resorting to
relativism: relativism, Toulmin asserted, provides no basis for distinguishing between
a moral or immoral argument. In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests
that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have
noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments; in other words, the
anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent"
aspect of arguments, and becomes unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In an
attempt to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin
attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor
relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
 Toulmin believes that a good argument can succeed in providing good justification to
a claim, which will stand up to criticism and earn a favourable verdict.
o
o 7.2.2 Components of argument

44
In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated
components for analyzing arguments:
1. Claim: Conclusions whose merit must be established. For example, if a person tries to
convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British
citizen." (1)
2. Data: The facts we appeal to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person
introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in
Bermuda." (2)
3. Warrant: The statement authorizing our movement from the data to the claim. In order
to move from the data established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda," to the claim in 1, "I
am a British citizen," the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 &
2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British Citizen." (3)
4. Backing: Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant;
backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the
readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as
credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions as backing statement to show
that it is true that "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British Citizen."
5. Rebuttal: Statements recognizing the restrictions to which the claim may legitimately
be applied. The rebuttal is exemplified as follows, "A man born in Bermuda will
legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy of
another country."
6. Qualifier: Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty
concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "possible," "probably,"
"impossible," "certainly," "presumably," "as far as the evidence goes," or
"necessarily." The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of
force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably."
The first three elements "claim", "data", and "warrant" are considered as the essential
components of practical arguments, while the second triad "qualifier", "backing", and
"rebuttal" may not be needed in some arguments.
When first proposed, this layout of argumentation is based on legal arguments and intended
to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom; in fact,
Toulmin did not realize that this layout would be applicable to the field of rhetoric and
communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and
Douglas Ehninger. Only after he published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the
rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.

The evolution of knowledge

Toulmin's Human Understanding (1972) asserts that conceptual change is evolutionary. This
book attacks Thomas Kuhn's explanation of conceptual change in The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. Kuhn held that conceptual change is a revolutionary (as opposed to an
evolutionary) process in which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another.
Toulmin criticizes the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, as he points out that the mutually
exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison; in other words, Kuhn's thesis has
made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field
invariant", or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.

45
Toulmin proposes an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's
model of biological evolution. On this reasoning, conceptual change involves innovation and
selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection
accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs
when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their
predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in
what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the
forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts;
from a relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept
from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a
process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will provide
improvement to our explanatory power more so than its rival concepts.

Rejection of certainty
o
o 7.2.3 The evolution of knowledge
 Toulmin's Human Understanding (1972) asserts that conceptual change is
evolutionary. This book attacks Thomas Kuhn's explanation of conceptual change in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn held that conceptual change is a
revolutionary (as opposed to an evolutionary) process in which mutually exclusive
paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticizes the relativist elements
in Kuhn's thesis, as he points out that the mutually exclusive paradigms provide no
ground for comparison; in other words, Kuhn's thesis has made the relativists' error of
overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant", or
commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
 Toulmin proposes an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to
Darwin's model of biological evolution. On this reasoning, conceptual change
involves innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of
conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of
the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular
discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects
the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers
as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of
competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
 From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of
contexts; from a relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a
rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the
evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one
concept will provide improvement to our explanatory power more so than its rival
concepts
o
o 7.2.4 Rejection of certainty
o n Cosmopolis (1990), Toulmin traces the quest for certainty back to Descartes
and Hobbes, and lauds Dewey, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Rorty for
abandoning that tradition.
 7.3 Pragma-dialectics

46
  Scholars at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands have pioneered a rigorous
modern version of dialectic under the name pragma-dialectics. The intuitive idea is to
formulate clearcut rules that, if followed, will yield rational discussion and sound
conclusions. Frans H. van Eemeren, the late Rob Grootendorst, and many of their
students have produced a large body of work expounding this idea.
 The dialectical conception of reasonableness is given by ten rules for critical
discussion, all being instrumental for achieving a resolution of the difference of
opinion (from Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 182-183).
The theory postulates this as an ideal model, and not something one expects to find as
an empirical fact. The model can however serve as an important heuristic and critical
tool for testing how reality approximates this ideal and point to where discourse goes
wrong, that is, when the rules are violated. Any such violation will constitute a
fallacy. Albeit not primarily focused on fallacies, pragma-dialectics provides a
systematic approach to deal with them in a coherent way.

 7.4 Walton's logical argumentation method
 Doug Walton developed a distinctive philosophical theory of logical argumentation
built around a set of practical methods to help a user identify, analyze and evaluate
arguments in everyday conversational discourse and in more structured areas such as
debate, law and scientific fields.There are four main components: argumentation
schemes, dialogue structures, argument mapping tools, and formal argumentation
systems. The method uses the notion of commitment in dialogue as the fundamental
tool for the analysis and evaluation of argumentation rather than the notion of
belief.Commitments are statements that the agent has expressed or formulated, and
has pledged to carry out, or has publicly asserted. According to the commitment
model, agents interact with each other in a dialogue in which each takes its turn to
contribute speech acts. The dialogue framework uses critical questioning as a way of
testing plausible explanations and finding weak points in an argument that raise doubt
concerning the acceptability of the argument.
 Walton's logical argumentation model takes a different view of proof and justification
from that taken in the dominant epistemology in analytical philosophy, which is based
on a true belief framework. On the logical argumentation approach, knowledge is seen
as form of belief commitment firmly fixed by an argumentation procedure that tests
the evidence on both sides, and use standards of proof to determine whether a
proposition qualifies as knowledge. On this evidence-based approach, scientific
knowledge must be seen as defeasible.


 8 Artificial intelligence
 A fortiori argument
 Argument (logic)
 Argumentation ethics
 Critical thinking
 Criticism
 Defeasible reasoning
 Dialectic
 Discourse ethics
 Essentially contested concepts
 Forensics

47
  Legal theory
 Logical argument
 Logic of Argumentation
 Negotiation theory
 Pars destruens/pars construens
 Public Sphere
 Rationality
 Rhetoric
 Social engineering (political science)
 Social psychology (psychology)
 Sophistry
 Source criticism
 Straight and Crooked Thinking (book)
Straight and Crooked Thinking, first published in 1930 and revised in 1953, is a book by
Robert H. Thouless which describes, assesses and critically analyses flaws in reasoning and
argument. Thouless describes it as a practical manual, rather than a theoretical one.

Synopsis
Thirty-eight fallacies are discussed in the book. Among them are:
 No. 3. proof by example, biased sample, cherry picking
 No. 6. ignoratio elenchi: "red herring"
 No. 9. false compromise/middle ground
 No. 12. argument in a circle
 No. 13. begging the question
 No. 17. equivocation
 No. 18. false dilemma: black and white thinking
 No. 19. continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard)
 No. 21. ad nauseam: "argumentum ad nauseam" or "argument from repetition" or
"argumentum ad infinitum"
 No. 25. style over substance fallacy
 No. 28. appeal to authority
 No. 31. thought-terminating cliché
 No. 36. special pleading
 No. 37. appeal to consequences
 No. 38. appeal to motive

See also

 Thinking portal

 List of cognitive biases

 List of common misconceptions
 List of fallacies
 List of memory biases
 List of topics related to public relations and propaganda

48
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentation_theory

18
To repeat – the lengthy topics had one aim that is to indicate a number of issues, question
areas or topics that philosophers created and become involved in. As repeatedly shown they
have become, are or were interdisciplinary.
For me the relevance of this is that philosophers become distracted from doing philosophy
and become involved in the execution of activities that meaningfully and legitimately belong
to areas in other discourses. Frequently there exist such a minute and subtle difference
between dealing with a topic or its aspects that are philosophically relevant and meaningful,
and meaningful in contexts or fields of other disciplines.
This, these, are the reasons why I mentioned, frequently in great detail, these topics and their
details. My purpose is to clarify the nature of philosophically subject-matter and illustrate
what are and what are not philosophically relevant concerns.
Much greater investigation and detailed analysis of the subjects and fields are required so as
to conceptualize philosophically what is philosophically relevant and thereby contribute to
what is philosophy, when viewed from the point of view or emphasis of philosophical
subject-matter.
19
Another way of approaching the above and other topics with the aim of identifying what are
philosophically relevant, what makes something philosophically relevant, or why some things
are philosophically relevant or not, would be to explore ‘how the treatment of a question,
problem, issue or subject’ makes it philosophically relevant or not. In other what is the nature
op appropriate philosophically investigation, research, questioning, methods, techniques,
tools and instruments. How does one deal with something, with anything, any thing, to make
it philosophical? Is it the type of questions one ask? Is it how one asks those questions? Or
what are the essentials, the ingredients of philosophical questioning and other aspects of
philosophizing, or philosophical investigations? These things might well be contextually
relative or field-dependent. In other words they might vary from context to context and from
the subject-matter being investigated in different contexts and/or for different reasons.
Do the words rational, reasonable, rationality assist us to identify such standards or rules?
Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Rationality
implies the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, or of one's actions with
one's reasons for action. "Rationality" has different specialized meanings in economics,
sociology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and political science.
Determining optimality for rational behaviour requires a quantifiable formulation of the
problem, and making several key assumptions. When the goal or problem involves making a
decision, rationality factors in how much information is available (e.g. complete or
incomplete knowledge). Collectively, the formulation and background assumptions are the

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model within which rationality applies. Illustrating the relativity of rationality: if one accepts
a model in which benefitting oneself is optimal, then rationality is equated with behaviour
that is self-interested to the point of being selfish; whereas if one accepts a model in which
benefiting the group is optimal, then purely selfish behaviour is deemed irrational. It is thus
meaningless to assert rationality without also specifying the background model assumptions
describing how the problem is framed and formulated.
Abulof argues that rationality has become an "essentially contested concept," as its "proper
use… inevitably involves endless disputes." He identifies "four fronts" for the disputes about
the meaning of rationality:
1. The purpose, or function, of ascribing rationality: Is it descriptive/explanatory,
prescriptive or subjunctive (rationality "as if" real)?
2. The subject of rationality: What, or who, is rational: the choice, the act, or the
choosing actor?
3. Cognition: What is the quality of the cognitive decision-making process: minimal
(calculative intentionality) or optimal (expected-utility)?
4. Rationale: Is rationality merely instrumental, that is, agnostic about the logic of
human action and its motivations (instrumental rationality) or does it substantially
inform them (substantive rationality, focusing on material maximization)?
Abulof, Uriel (2015). "The Malpractice of Rationality in International Relations".
Rationality and Society. 27 (3): 358–384.
It is believed by some philosophers (notably A. C. Grayling) that a good rationale must be
independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts. Any process of
evaluation or analysis, that may be called rational, is expected to be highly objective, logical
and "mechanical". If these minimum requirements are not satisfied i.e. if a person has been,
even slightly, influenced by personal emotions, feelings, instincts, or culturally specific moral
codes and norms, then the analysis may be termed irrational, due to the injection of subjective
bias.
In the psychology of reasoning, psychologists and cognitive scientists have defended
different positions on human rationality. One prominent view, due to Philip Johnson-Laird
and Ruth M. J. Byrne among others is that humans are rational in principle but they err in
practice, that is, humans have the competence to be rational but their performance is limited
by various factors
Modern cognitive science and neuroscience show that studying the role of emotion in mental
function (including topics ranging from flashes of scientific insight to making future plans),
that no human has ever satisfied this criterion, except perhaps a person with no affective
feelings, for example an individual with a massively damaged amygdala or severe
psychopathy. Thus, such an idealized form of rationality is best exemplified by computers,
and not people. However, scholars may productively appeal to the idealization as a point of
reference.
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rationality
  Jürgen Habermas (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 1; Reason
and the Rationalization of Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Richard B. Brandt (1959). Ethical Theory: The Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics.
Prentice-Hall.

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Kant had distinguished theoretical from practical reason. Rationality theorist Jesús Mosterín
makes a parallel distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, although, according
to him, reason and rationality are not the same: reason would be a psychological faculty,
whereas rationality is an optimizing strategy. Humans are not rational by definition, but they
can think and behave rationally or not, depending on whether they apply, explicitly or
implicitly, the strategy of theoretical and practical rationality to the thoughts they accept and
to the actions they perform.
The distinction is also described as that between epistemic rationality, the attempt to form
beliefs in an unbiased manner, and instrumental rationality.
Theoretical rationality has a formal component that reduces to logical consistency and a
material component that reduces to empirical support, relying on our inborn mechanisms of
signal detection and interpretation. Mosterín distinguishes between involuntary and implicit
belief, on the one hand, and voluntary and explicit acceptance, on the other. Theoretical
rationality can more properly be said to regulate our acceptances than our beliefs. Practical
rationality is the strategy for living one’s best possible life, achieving your most important
goals and your own preferences in as far as possible.
 Mosterín, Jesús (2008). Lo mejor posible: Racionalidad y acción humana. Madrid:
Alianza Editorial, 2008. 318 pp. ISBN 978-84-206-8206-8.
 Mosterín, Jesús (2002). “Acceptance Without Belief”. Manuscrito, vol. XXV , pp. 313–
335.
As the study of arguments that are correct in virtue of their form, logic is of fundamental
importance in the study of rationality. The study of rationality in logic is more concerned
with epistemic rationality, that is, attaining beliefs in a rational manner, than instrumental
rationality.
The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the
social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. It is
not a specialized area of sociology but instead deals with broad fundamental questions about
the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basics of
our knowledge about the world.[Complementary to the sociology of knowledge is the
sociology of ignorance, including the study of ne-science, ignorance, knowledge gaps, or
non-knowledge as inherent features of knowledge making. It was largely reinvented and
applied much more closely to everyday life in the 1960s, particularly by Peter L. Berger and
Thomas Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality (1966) and is still central for
methods dealing with qualitative understanding of human society (compare socially
constructed reality). The 'genealogical' and 'archaeological' studies of Michel Foucault are of
considerable contemporary influence.
A particularly important contemporary contribution to the sociology of knowledge is found in
the work of Michel Foucault. Madness and Civilization (1961) postulated that conceptions of
madness and what was considered "reason" or "knowledge" was itself subject to major
culture bias - in this respect mirroring similar criticisms by Thomas Szasz, at the time the
foremost critic of psychiatry, and himself now an eminent psychiatrist. A point where
Foucault and Szasz agreed was that sociological processes played the major role in defining
"madness" as an "illness" and prescribing "cures". In The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology
of Medical Perception (1963), Foucault extended his critique to institutional clinical
medicine, arguing for the central conceptual metaphor of "The Gaze", which had implications
for medical education, prison design, and the carceral state as understood today. Concepts of

51
criminal justice and its intersection with medicine were better developed in this work than in
Szasz and others, who confined their critique to current psychiatric practice. The Order of
Things (1966) and The Archeology of Knowledge (1969) introduced abstract notions of
mathesis and taxonomia to explain the subjective 'ordering' of the human sciences. These, he
claimed, had transformed 17th and 18th century studies of "general grammar" into modern
"linguistics", "natural history" into modern "biology", and "analysis of wealth" into modern
"economics"; though not, claimed Foucault, without loss of meaning. According to Foucault,
the 19th century transformed what knowledge was. Perhaps Foucault's best-known claim was
that "Man did not exist" before the 18th century. Foucault regarded notions of humanity and
of humanism as inventions of modernity. Accordingly, a cognitive bias had been introduced
unwittingly into science, by over-trusting the individual doctor or scientist's ability to see and
state things objectively. Foucault roots this argument in the rediscovery of Kant, though his
thought is significantly influenced by Nietzsche - that philosopher declaring the "death of
God" in the 19th century, and the anti-humanists proposing the "death of Man" in the 20th.
The New Sociology of Knowledge (a postmodern approach considering knowledge as culture
by drawing upon Marxist, French structuralist, and American pragmatist traditions)
introduces new concepts that dictate how knowledge is socialized in the modern era by new
kinds of social organizations and structures.
American sociologist Robert K. Merton (1910–2003) dedicates a section of Social Theory
and Social Structure (1949; revised and expanded, 1957 and 1968) to the study of the
sociology of knowledge in Part III, titled The Sociology of Knowledge and Mass
Communications.  Doyle McCarthy, Knowledge as Culture: The New Sociology of
Knowledge, Routledge, published October 23, 1996, ISBN 978-0415064972
  Swidler, A., Arditi, J. 1994. The New Sociology of Knowledge. Annual Review of
Sociology , 20, pp. 205-329
  McCarthy, E. Doyle. 1996. Knowledge as Culture: The New Sociology of
Knowledge . New York: Routledge.
 Merton, Robert K. (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) emerged as a framework for the study of knowledge and
education and is now being used to analyse a growing range of social and cultural practices
across increasingly different institutional and national contexts, both within and beyond
education.[25] It is an approach that builds primary on the work of Basil Bernstein and Pierre
Bourdieu. It also integrates insights from sociology (including Durkheim, Marx, Weber and
Foucault), systemic functional linguistics, philosophy (such as Karl Popper and critical
realism), early cultural studies, anthropology (especially Mary Douglas and Ernest Gellner),
and other approaches.
 Legitimation Code Theory, bibliography
  Maton, K. (2014), Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of
education, London, Routledge.
 Maton, K., Hood, S. & Shay, S. (eds) (2016) Knowledge-building: Educational studies in
Legitimation Code Theory. London, Routledge
 Sociology of scientific knowledge
 Sociology of scientific ignorance
 Socially constructed reality
 Social constructivism
 Epistemology

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  Ontology
 Knowledge management
 Knowledge
 Bibliography of sociology
 Émile Durkheim
 Marcel Mauss
 Max Scheler
 Karl Mannheim
 Werner Stark
 Alfred Schutz
 Harold Garfinkel
 Peter L. Berger
 Thomas Luckmann
 Michel Foucault
 Kurt Heinrich Wolff
 Basil Bernstein
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Knowledge_representation

A
 Argument maps (2 C, 53 F)
 Artificial intelligence (30 C, 422 F)

C
 Classification systems (21 C, 1 P, 46 F)

D
 ► Data dictionary (3 F)

M
 ► Math-Bridge (2 F)
 Mathematical models (4 C, 53 F)
 ► Metaclass (2 F)
 Mind maps (2 C, 1 P, 274 F)

O
 Ontology (15 C, 83 F)

P
 ► Phutball (3 F)

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S
 Scientific modeling (36 C, 152 F)
 Semantic Web (7 C, 77 F)

T
 ► Topic Maps (3 F)

V
 Visualization (21 C, 97 F)
20

20

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