Reason (philosophy)

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The expression " reason " (Greek arché , aitía , Latin principium , English reason ) is used in the most general sense of the word to denote everything that is used to answer the question "Why?", "Where from?", "From what?" What is meant is something that is factually or temporally earlier, through which the following is determined from it or thereafter.

In today's German, the word “reason” has the meaning of justification as well as that of foundation and basis. In different languages, the same word is used to designate both reason and reason (Greek "logos", Latin "ratio" and the expressions derived from it in the Romance languages ​​and in English).

In philosophical parlance, the expression “reason” is used ambiguously and is difficult to distinguish from the neighboring expressions “ cause ” and “ principle ”. A distinction is often made in tradition between real reasons and reasons of knowledge. In today's linguistic usage, one speaks of cause when the material reason is different from what is justified by it, while today, in the narrower sense, the reason is usually referred to as the ground of knowledge.

The problem of the ground can be discussed from various methodological points of view. An ontological and an epistemological approach are essential here.

Concept history

In the early days of European philosophy, the term “reason” ( arché ) was characterized by a number of not yet differentiated components of meaning. In original mythical thinking, arché meant something that is present in all parts of a being and that constitutes its unity; it came close to the meaning of what would later be called the cause of the substance. With Anaximander , the causal component of arché comes to the fore when he understands it as that from which the concrete things emerge, what “controls” the event and thereby gives it the character of necessity. Aristotle uses the two synonymous terms arché (with Aristotle best to translate as “principle”) and aitía (cause) for “reason” . Regarding the causes, he distinguishes the material ( causa materialis ), form ( causa formalis ), effective ( causa efficiens ) and final cause ( causa finalis ), which all represent "reasons" for the respective being in different ways. Principles are “the first thing from whence something is or is or is known” (Met V 1013a 18-19). Aristotle makes the distinction between the reasons of being (later ratio essendi ), of becoming ( ratio fiendi ) and of knowing ( ratio cognoscendi ), on which Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff oriented themselves. Since Christian August Crusius , the reasons of being and becoming have been referred to in German as "real reasons".

Reasons for knowledge

Reasons for knowledge are reasons which, within a reason, are intended to support the truth claim of a certain - theoretical or practical - judgment. This can be about other judgments accepted as true (1) or the assessed facts themselves (2). The strictest form of the first case is the proof , in which the reasoned sentence is logically inferred from other sentences accepted as true. In many cases, however, there are also weaker reasons, such as agreement with the judgment of an expert or a tradition. In the second case it is a matter of justification through the use of evidence , i.e. H. the unequivocal showing of a thing. Thus for Aristotle the first principles are immediately evident as soon as one has understood them.

Sometimes the ( inductive ) confirmation of hypotheses is also seen as a kind of justification for a judgment. The empirical data supporting a hypothesis are then given as the “reason” for accepting the hypothesis in question.

In practical judgments, decisions are justified. This is done in such a way that what was the subject of the decision in question is shown to be a necessary means to an end and this end is named as the goal of the action, whereby evidence may be used for the purpose.

In philosophy since David Hume and Immanuel Kant, the prevailing view is that theoretical and practical reasons are different types of reasons. The distinction made by David Hume between beliefs and desires is decisive. While theoretical reasons justify beliefs that ultimately have to be verified against empirical data, practical reasons justify action. In addition to convictions, wishes also play a role in these, which are no longer accessible to further rational criticism.

Reasoning theory

Stephen Toulmin , one of the pioneers of modern argumentation theory , developed a reasoning scheme that is widespread in the Anglo-American region in 1958, in which one goes from a ground, evidence or data with a transition rule ('warrant') to a conclusion (Claim) reached. The French-language standard work by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca , published in the same year, uses a significantly broader concept of reason, which allows values ​​as well as data and facts.

In informal logic , a reason contains a premise and a (sometimes hidden) co-premise which together are suitable to achieve the thesis. The pragma dialectic with its formalized analysis technique of colloquial discussions is often assigned to this sub-area of ​​argumentation theory.

In the case of the German philosopher Harald Wohlrapp , the reason is an argument based on an epistemic basis of proven orientations. This is open to justified re-evaluations of the existing view in the argumentative course of action.

Real reasons

In the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, the real reasons are identical to the four causes mentioned by Aristotle. Based on the question of how change is possible, a distinction was made between internal and external causes or synonymously between reasons of being and reasons of becoming. As internal causes, a distinction was made between the substance and form, which are mutually complementary. The cause of the substance was understood as the principle of change, the cause of form as the principle of identity. The two external causes were also seen as complementary - the effective cause as the principle that sets a change in motion, the purpose cause as the goal towards which this change occurs.

Since David Hume, the empirical and later also the positivist schools of thought became more and more convinced that causes can only be spoken of as effective causes. The relationship existing between cause and effect was only interpreted as a regular sequence, which in Kant's sense is only thought of as causality in the human mind.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Harald Schöndorf : "Grund" in: Walter Brugger and Harald Schöndorf (eds.): Philosophical Dictionary , Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau 2010, pp. 191–193
  2. ↑ See Wolfgang Röd, article "Grund" in: Hans Michael Baumgartner u. a. (Ed.): Handbook of basic philosophical concepts
  3. ^ Christian August Crusius: Draft of the necessary. Reason truths, how far they are opposed to the accidental [Met.] (1753) § 34; see. Way of the certainty and reliability of the human. Knowledge [Log.] (1747) § 140
  4. ↑ See Stephen Toulmin: The Uses of Argument. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958. (German: The use of arguments. Beltz Athenaeum, Weinheim 1996, ISBN 3-89547-096-1 .)
  5. ↑ Chaim Perelman, Lucie Olbrects-Tyteca: The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 2008 (1958); Pp. 65-79.
  6. ↑ Harald Wohlrapp: The concept of the argument. About the relationships between knowledge, research, belief, subjectivity and reason . Würzburg: Königshausen u. Neumann, 2008 ISBN 978-3-8260-3820-4, especially pp. 98-101.