Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Laws of Thought'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Although the universal law (logos) is common to all, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B002), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.133.4-
     A reaction: Heraclitus mentions 'logos' in just three fragments - this one, and Idea 15660 and Idea 424.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 7)
     A reaction: I defy anyone to come up with a better definition of reasoning than that. The emphasis is on knowledge rather than truth, which you would expect from a pragmatist. …Actually the definition doesn't cover conditional reasoning terribly well.