11 How Do I Reason?
Zora had zero training in logic. But she knew that what her classmate was saying made no sense. Zora kept trying to gently object, while sensitively pointing out to her classmate the failure in her classmate’s logic, which wasn’t really logic at all but instead some form of bald and internally inconsistent assertion. Yet having no formal training in reasoning, Zora was unable to articulate adequately to her classmate the precise problem with her classmate’s purported argument, which wasn’t an argument at all but instead some form of wild conjecture. Frustrated by her inability to reason with her classmate, Zora finally just smiled at her, while giving her a light tap on the shoulder to encourage them both to make their way into class. Zora made a note to herself, though, to take a greater interest in the basis for reasoning. Zora couldn’t be sure that she was expressing herself adequately without knowing the basic forms of reasoning.
Reasoning
Reasoning is plainly critical to effective studies. A general goal of education is to increase rationality. Instructional programs generally seek to promote logical, sound, stable, predictable, and reliable action justified by the instructed concepts, knowledge, routines, skills, and other forms. The Latin root of the verb to educate suggests to draw forth, train up, or lead out. We mature in our thinking, opinions, assertions, and actions when we can express sound and logical reasons for them, consistent with experience, as reflected in authority, principle, values, and shared and traditional forms of justification. One need not necessarily be educated, and certainly not intellectual, to be wise, sound, and sensible. But to be an educated person generally means being able to explain and rationalize one’s thinking and actions with logical constructs. Sharpened reasoning is, in short, an outcome and goal of education.
Forms
Traditionally, reasoning takes one of three forms. You can deploy any of these three forms of reasoning anytime you wish to evaluate a premise, make an argument, or justify a rule or outcome. Deductive reasoning begins from a first principle, applying the principle to advocate for the better result or outcome. The Golden Rule, which is to do to others as you would have them do to you, is the prime example. If the question is whether a company should conceal a material defect in its product, the Golden Rule would say not to do so because the company would not benefit from others doing the same harmful act to it. Inductive reasoning, by contrast, draws a principle from several specific instances. If the question is what the rule should be for the sale of products with material defects, several bad sales results would likely suggest a rule for pre-sale disclosure. In that way, deductive reasoning is top down, while inductive reasoning is bottom up. You can reason either from principle to data or from data to principle. You can either specify from the top down or generalize from the bottom up. Your choice. Indeed, try it both ways to see which might be the better reasoning form in any one instance.
Probabilities
A third form of reasoning, after deductive and inductive reasoning, is abductive reasoning, which involves drawing tentative conclusions from probabilities. Much of life is far less certain than deductive reasoning generally requires and far less clear than inductive reasoning generally suggests. And so in many instances, we instead infer and surmise, not with absolute confidence but in doing our best. For example, a physician sees a patient with a sore throat and chills that could be either a cold treatable with antibiotics or flu left to run its course. Yet having seen three other patients that same day with clearer flu symptoms, the physician tentatively diagnoses flu, declining antibiotic treatment. It’s only a surmise and could be wrong but is still useful in setting an initial course subject to later adjustment. Much reasoning involves uncertain inferences, which is fine as long as the reasoner acknowledges and plans for the uncertainty. When you find yourself reasoning within uncertainty, openly acknowledge and deal with the uncertainty, while reasoning nonetheless. That open-ended, uncertain, contingent process is how many experts proceed.
Method
You may not remember much if anything of the explanations just given because they haven’t given you a method for reasoning. You need a method for reasoning in order to put its forms to work. A common method, or call it a rubric, for reasoning involves first identifying the question or issue. No sense in arguing until you know what the question is. You next identify the rule, principle, or authority on which you intend to rely for your reasoning. May as well get the authority out in the open. You then proceed with your analysis, in deductive, inductive, or abductive form. You must then reach your conclusion, which after all is the point of reasoning, not just to leave things hanging but to have some result, even if only a tentative and heavily qualified result. If you look closely, the three brief examples of reasoning given immediately above follow this method. To remember this reasoning method, deploy any rubric or mnemonic you wish. You might, for instance, remember the four steps issue, authority, analysis, and conclusion with the imperfect but memorable mnemonic ISAAC. The following paragraphs address each of those four reasoning steps, plus a bonus step to broaden and deepen your reasoning.
Issue
First stating the issue or question presented gets everyone on the same page. Whether you are answering a professor’s question in class, drafting a paper to submit for an assignment, writing an essay answer on an exam, or addressing a panel while defending your thesis, begin by stating or restating the question. Doing so ensures that your readers or listeners know where you’re starting and intending to head. Yet stating the issue can do much more than merely foreshadow the argument. Your statement of the question can also subtly or not-so-subtly project the analysis and answer. Every debater knows that the one who asks the question sets the terms for the debate. The question contains the answer. So, restate the question on your terms, as you understand it and intend to answer it. If your examiner had a slightly or vastly different question in mind, at least they’ll know what question you’re answering. If your statement of the issue is not too far off of their actual question, they will also likely give you good credit for answering your own question. You may have properly recast the question in a helpful way, exposing a better understanding of the subject. Pollsters know that their results depend on how they ask the question. The one who states the question best wins the debate.
Authority
The next step in reasoning is to state the rule, principle, or authority you intend to apply. This critical step is the one that separates fools from the wise, to put it perhaps too bluntly. Immature or irrational individuals argue from their own place in the world, as if their subjective experience or own interests are the only justification they need. Rational individuals, those who recognize that others have equal place and worth in the world, argue from a generally accepted or generalizable rule or principle. In some cases, you may have only a single choice of authority, such as, in mathematics, the rule for addition or multiplication or, in law, a Supreme Court ruling. But your choices of authority may be broader than you think. You might, for instance, argue from a general principle like the Golden Rule, specific authority such as a commission or council resolution, specific expert recognized as such in the field, or even from personal observation and experience if clearly disclosed. Whatever authority you choose, make it one that your examiner also acknowledges. Choose multiple authorities if you can and if it would strengthen your argument.
Analysis
Having stated the issue and the authority, you might think that the conclusion would be obvious. Yet explain it, whether it’s obvious or not. Novice reasoners often state the issue and authority but fail to analyze the issue against the authority. Analysis makes your reasoning transparent. Analysis can take several forms. One form is simply to equate terms, elements, and conditions within your issue with terms and commands within your authority. If, for instance, the Golden Rule is to do to others as you would have them do to you, then explain who, in the question you’ve just stated, is the other and who is the you. And explain why you would or wouldn’t want that thing done to you. Equating terms, though, isn’t the only form of analysis. You can alternatively consider factors that weigh for and against different applications of your rule. Or you could play out different possible outcomes to predict which would be the better outcome, in an instrumental form of reasoning. The form of reasoning you choose, though, may be less important than your willingness to explain and justify your outcome.
Conclusion
Reasoning also needs a conclusion. You don’t reason in a vacuum. You instead reason for a purpose, to reach some kind of resolution. Your conclusion doesn’t have to be black and white, all one way or the other. Indeed, your reasoning may be stronger if you qualify it, acknowledge reservations about it, or even admit arguments for a different conclusion. But your reasoning needs to draw some direction out of the exercise. Otherwise, you are just whistling into the wind. Concluding is especially critical if the quiz, test, exam, or other exercise you are completing asks or instructs you to give an answer. Your conclusion may only be a prediction, projection, or preference. If so, then say so. But still conclude. Reasoning doesn’t generally reward speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth. In some quizzes, tests, exams, or other exercises, you don’t even need to be right. You just need to be decisive. Clarity and confidence can win the debate. Having a clear direction on which to proceed can have value, even if the direction is wrong, when you can change direction later. Reach a conclusion.
Evaluation
Once you reach a conclusion to your reasoning, you need not necessarily stop there. Some forums encourage or permit some reflection over your conclusion. In a long-form essay response, for instance, or in a recitation or thesis defense, your evaluation of your conclusion may be just as significant as, or more important than, the conclusion itself. Once you conclude your reasoning with some form of answer or resolution, you may, for instance, project the consequences that the resolution would likely produce. You may, for another instance, point out the public or private gains that would flow from proceeding as your reasoning concluded. Alternatively, you may question whether your conclusion would make any practical difference in public or private outcomes at all, suggesting instead that something else needs to happen than the question permitted you to address. You may, in other words, take a broader look at the whole topic of which your particular issue was only a part. Giving some larger context to your conclusion can show your ability to step back and evaluate not only your reasoning but also its larger impact.
Applications
You can use the foregoing issue, authority, analysis, conclusion (ISAAC) method of reasoning in any number of educational settings. You may, for instance, do a mini analysis of this type in response to short-answer questions in an exam. You could surely use this method for a long-form response to essay questions in an exam or assignment. But you could also use this form as the structure for a long or short paper making any kind of analysis or evaluation. You could also use this structure to describe an experiment or study and its results. You might also use this method in a debate or oral argument. You might even use this method when answering an instructor’s question, or leading or contributing to a discussion. Wherever you need to demonstrate your reasoning, consider identifying the issue or question, the authority or rule, the analysis, and the conclusion.
Transparency
The underlying point of this chapter is to help you make your reasoning transparent or explicit. Instruction has a lot to do not just with teaching the how of things but also establishing the why of things. You do not generally justify a decision, action, or activity with the rationale that we always do things that way. When someone questions a practice, they likely already know that the practice is a custom, habit, or tradition. The question instead requires the practitioner to give a rationale beyond custom or tradition. Society survives on tradition, which is a powerful guide. But inquiry, not tradition, is how knowledge advances. Making your reasoning explicit so that others can examine it helps knowledge to advance. When others can see and test your reasoning, they can choose whether to rely on it. Reasoning is the process by which education proceeds. Hone your reasoning skills while making your reasoning transparent, and you’ll strengthen your learning and education.
Reflection
How would you rate your reasoning skills on a scale from one to ten? Within or outside of education, does your reasoning routinely convince others, or does it leave them unconvinced? How transparent is your reasoning? Can others tell why you think what you think? Are you naturally a principled thinker, in top-down or deductive fashion? Or do you instead prefer to look at the examples first to induce or infer a rule, pattern, or decision, in bottom-up or inductive fashion? Do you guess, surmise, or conjecture effectively from probabilities in uncertain situations with multiple variables? What do you think of the issue, authority, analysis, conclusion (ISAAC) method of reasoning? Have you used a similar or different rubric? Are you skilled at identifying and deploying rules, principles, and other authority? How skilled are you at analyzing, whether by equating terms, elements, and conditions, by weighing factors, or by projecting results? Do you have a naturally clear and declarative way of expressing your conclusions, or do you instead avoid commitment and prefer to leave everything open and ambiguous? In what educational program do you find yourself reasoning more so than simply memorizing, recalling, and reciting?
Key Points
Reasoning skills are generally important or critical in education.
Reasoning can be deductive (top down) or inductive (bottom up).
One can also reason inferentially and with probabilities in uncertainty.
Make your reasoning explicit so that others can evaluate it.
Reason by stating the issue, authority, analysis, and conclusion.
Carefully craft the question or issue that you are answering.
Discern the most convincing rule, principle, or other authority.
Apply the authority to the conditions of your question for analysis.
Conclude clearly, even if you qualify your conclusion with conditions.
Evaluate your conclusion to add insight and perspective.
Use reasoning skills across your program’s curriculum.