Reason is the capacity for
consciously making sense of things, applying
logic, for establishing and verifying
facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and
beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically
human activities as
philosophy,
science,
language,
mathematics, and
art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of
human nature. The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as
rationality and sometimes as
discursive reason, in opposition to
intuitive reason.
Reason or "reasoning" is associated with
thinking,
cognition, and
intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about
cause and
effect,
truth and
falsehood, and what is
good or bad.
In contrast to reason as an
abstract noun,
a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon or
behaviour. The ways in which human beings reason through
argument are the subject of inquiries in the field of
logic.
Reason is closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change
beliefs,
attitudes,
traditions, and
institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and
self-determination.
Psychologists and
cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain
how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of
automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the controversial question of whether animals can reason.