The Art of Logical Thinking (or the Laws of Reasoning)

REASONING

THE PROCESS OF REASONING

THE CONCEPT

THE USE OF CONCEPTS

CONCEPTS AND IMAGES

TERMS

THE MEANING OF TERMS

JUDGMENTS

PROPOSITIONS

IMMEDIATE REASONING

INDUCTIVE REASONING

REASONING BY INDUCTION

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

MAKING AND TESTING HYPOTHESES

DEDUCTIVE REASONING

THE SYLLOGISM

VARIETIES OF SYLLOGISMS

REASONING BY ANALOGY

FALLACIES



The processes of Reasoning may be said to comprise four general stages or steps, as follows:

I. Abstraction, by which is meant the process of drawing off and setting aside from an object, person or thing, a quality or attribute, and making of it a distinct object of thought. For instance, if I perceive in a lion the quality of strength, and am able to think of this quality abstractly and independently of the animal—if the term strength has an actual mental meaning to me, independent of the lion—then I have abstracted that quality; the thinking thereof is an act of abstraction; and the thought-idea itself is an abstract idea. Some writers hold that these abstract ideas are realities, and "not mere figments of fancy." As Brooks says: "The rose dies, but my idea of its color and fragrance remains." Other authorities regard Abstraction as but an act of attention concentrated upon but the particular quality to the exclusion of others, and that the abstract idea has no existence apart from the general idea of the object in which it is included. Sir William Hamilton says: "We can rivet our attention on some particular mode of a thing, as its smell, its color, its figure, its size, etc., and abstract it from the others. This may be called Modal Abstraction. The abstraction we have now been considering is performed on individual objects, and is consequently particular. There is nothing necessarily connected with generalization in abstraction; generalization is indeed dependent on abstraction, which it supposes; but abstraction does not involve generalization."