Because

  How to Analyze and Evaluate Ordinary Reasoning

  Section  6:  Analyzing Reasoning 

 G. Randolph Mayes

 Department of Philosophy

 Sacramento State University

 

6.1  Review

 

In the last couple of sections we learned that practical reasoning, understood as reasoning in which the premises are intended to both imply and produce the conclusion, always comes in one of two forms: explanatory or argumentative.  We reconstruct explanatory reasoning into rationales called explanations, and argumentative reasoning into rationales we call arguments.  In explanations reasons produce their conclusions by identifying causal relationships.  In arguments reasons produce their conclusions by identifying evidential relationships.

 

6.2  Analyzing reasoning

 

Everyone participates in the reasoning process in two ways: we both give it and we receive it.  Although authorship tends to suggest an authoritative perspective, the fact is that we often do not know precisely what we are trying to say, and we often benefit from the interpretive efforts of those who are on the receiving end.  Proper analysis, then, is the key to making sense of reasoning, and it is this aspect of reasoning that will be our primary focus.

 

 

6.3  The interpretive process

 

There is no algorithm or recipe for interpreting reasoning.  It's a subtle and complex affair which you already perform intuitively.  As we noted in Section 1, here you are not so much learning to reason  as refining a skill that you already possess.  That's a good thing, because scientists and philosophers have so so far not been very successful at teaching practical reasoning to anything that couldn't already do it pretty well (e.g., a computer or a non human animal.)

 

The best way to think of the process of interpreting reasoning is as a problem-solving activity in which you construct a hypothesis about the nature of the reasoning someone is giving you, and then attempt to reconstruct that reasoning on the basis of this hypothesis.  When reconstruction on the basis of a particular hypothesis fails, we throw it away and try a different one.

 

There are basically two stages in the interpretive process, and they do not occur in any particular order.  These stages are:

  • Identifying the reasons and conclusions.

  • Identifying the relations as either argumentative or explanatory.

6.4  Identifying reasons and conclusions

 

As we noted earlier, some linguistic indicators exist for the purpose of identifying the relation between reasons and conclusions.  For example:

  • A therefore B.

  • A hence B.

  • A so B.

  • A thus B.

  • A is why B.

  • A implies B

  • A means B.

are all common ways of identifying A as the reason for conclusion B.  We also noted earlier that one of the most common ways of identifying the reason/conclusion relation is:

  • A because B.

The word because differs from the other indicators above in that it asserts the opposite conclusion/reason relationship.  In A because B,  A is the conclusion and B is the reason.

 

It's important to understand that this is by no means an exhaustive list of the ways we have to indicate a reason/conclusion relationship.  For example:

  • A makes me think that B.

  • A is the reason for B.

  • A is the basis of B.

  • A is the result of B.

  • A since B.

and many, many other phrases are used to identify this relationship as well.  It is equally important to understand that we often use logically ambiguous indicators that we are only able to disambiguate through context and our own background knowledge.  For example, normally we use the word and when we want to assert the truth of two statements.  For example:

  • Brandon is funny and handsome.

simply asserts that:

  1. Brandon is funny.

  2. Brandon is handsome.

Specifically, it does not assert that Brandon is funny because he is handsome, or vice versa. However, we also sometimes use and as a conclusion indicator.  For example:

  • Brandon fell down and hit his head on a rock.

does not simply assert that:

  1. Brandon fell down.

  2. Brandon hit his head on a rock.

but rather that Brandon hit his head on a rock after and because he fell down. 

 

 

6.5  Identifying arguments and explanations

 

As we already noted, the task of identifying reasoning as argumentative or explanatory is not essentially separate from the task of identifying reasons and conclusions.  To see this, consider the following:

  • Batman is dead.  He's not moving.

Is this best reconstructed as an argument or an explanation?  The answer is that both interpretations are defensible.  We could say that it is an explanation asserting that Batman isn't moving because Batman is dead:

 

Alternatively, we could say that it is an argument for the conclusion that Batman is dead because he isn't moving:

 

Notice that these would not be equally good interpretations if the author had given us a little help.  For example, if she had said:

  • Batman isn't moving because he is dead.

we would favor the explanatory interpretation.   On the other hand, if she had said:

  • I think Batman is dead because he isn't moving.

this would favor the argument interpretation.  (You might feel the need to point out here Batman's not moving is very poor evidence of his death.   After all, he could be sleeping, hiding or any number of things.  That's right, but at the moment we aren't evaluating the reasoning ; we're just learning to reconstruct it.)

 

 

6.6  Testing your rationale

 

Once you have proposed a certain rationale, you need to subject it to two tests, which are best pursued in the following order.

  1. Does this rationale make sense as an argument (or explanation)?

  2. Is this rationale a reasonable interpretation of what the speaker actually said?

 

To understand the first test, reconsider the two statements:

  • Batman is dead.  He isn't moving.

We noted that there are two equally good interpretation of this, but we should also note that there are some bad, or at least rather peculiar ones as well.  For example:

 

 

Consider the proposed explanation.  Does it make sense to say that Batman is dead because he isn't moving?  Put differently, does the fact that Batman isn't moving cause him to be dead?  It is at least a very peculiar thing to say.  It may be that Batman died because he failed to move out of the way of a bullet, but even in that case it is peculiar to represent the the cause of death simply as the failure to move. 

 

Now consider the proposed argument:  Does it make sense for anyone to say that the reason she thinks Batman isn't moving is that Batman is dead?  Does it make sense to propose Batman's death as evidence that he isn't moving?  Again, we would have to imagine a fairly unusual state of affairs.  For example, in response to someone's question whether Batman will be showing up anytime soon you might argue that he can't move because he is dead.

 

The point here is that while there are few situations in which it is absolutely impossible to make sense of some proposed evidentiary or causal relationship, there are some interpretations that are for more difficult to make sense of than others.  If it requires a great deal of effort and creativity to make sense of the proposed reconstruction, this is strong evidence that the proposed reconstruction is off the mark. 

 

To understand the second test, simply reconsider the statement:

  • Batman isn't moving because he is dead.

 

Suppose you reconstructed this reasoning as follows:

 

Notice that while this makes perfect sense as an argument (i.e., Batman's not moving is at least some evidence that he is dead), it conflicts with what is actually said.   Here, the use of the word because indicates that Batman isn't moving as the conclusion and Batman is dead as the reason.  So this reconstruction is either incorrect, or it accuses the person who gave the reasoning of linguistic incompetence.