The Goodness Of Reason

 

As an amateur philosopher, I have been studying classical logic to learn more about logic and to understand how to think more clearly, to lay out better arguments.

 

One of the logic texts that I am perusing is An Introduction To Traditional Logic by Scott M. Sullivan.  He wrote something that I disagree with, at least in part.

 

Let me quote and respond to what he wrote on Page 1 of his text: “The philosopher Aristotle once wrote that all human beings by nature desire to know. We are knowing creatures and when confronted with questions and problems, we seek to find solutions. But although we are all knowers and thinkers by nature, it is of course true that we can always improve our reasoning skills.”

 

My disagreement with Sullivan is partial,: in part people are curious and ambitious to gain knowledge, but mostly people seek to know little as possible so as not to anger their peers in the pack they belong to.  Besides, being intellectually ambitious is difficult: growing and learning are very hard work. Why bother? My take is that by nature people do not want to know what is what, what is good, what is their duty, what are they, and if what they are is insufficient in some way or immoral in some way--they are not eager or curious about figuring out how to remedy these imperfections and shortfalls.

 

Because people are born depraved, overly fatalistic, and lazy mentally and otherwise, lacking in self-love and sufficient individualistic focus, they do not think much but feel much more.

 

It is only as their free will and conscious deliberation to know things grows and expands as they self-realize as a life mission, then they learn how to think wise and deep, and learn how to think logically. As people, from an objective perspective, learn to perceive empirically and rationally, in conjunction with a realist ontology, their acceptance of the correspondence theory of truth (and a love of seeking truth) and their ability to translate these perceptions into terms and language that includes moral, qualitative and spiritual values, they will be able rationally to put into words a thought or action that is moral or immoral. At that point, they use reason not just to fabricate syllogisms, they also have the values, framework, experience and cultural outlook that allows them to know good, do good and fight for the good.

 

Another way of stating this is in a civilized, unnatural, maverizing mode of higher being, then people will have learned to think, and then it becomes a pleasurable way of life.

 

I also think reasoning is morally good more than not, and feeling, more than not, is not good. We adults need go get our kids to individual-live more than group-live. and individual-living is the foundational mode of existence that will trigger in the student the understanding of how to think well and live right.

 

Reasoning and knowledge can lead to wisdom if one is open to hearing from the Good Spirits..