Reason
The term in its modern sense refers to use of the ability of human thought, be made of the matters covered in the mind through observation and experience universal connections in the world by inference, to recognize their importance to establish rules and principles and to act accordingly. As far as the reason depends on principles of knowledge and science, this is called theoretical reason. Is the reason aligned with the action or the standard of living, it follows the principles of practical reason, which can be oriented in moral questions of values or to achieve efficiency on the economic principle.
The precise meaning of the concept of reason is determined differently in the literature. He has undergone a change in the combination with the concept of mind in the course of the history of Greek philosophy ( Nous and Logos over dianoia ) through the Middle Ages ( intellectus versus ratio) to modern times. The in modern times, triggered by Meister Eckhart and Luther, evolving use was formulated by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, as it has become largely common in the modern era. After that, the reason is the highest faculty of knowledge, the mind by which the perception is structured, controlled, and this sets limits and recognizes its limitations. It is therefore the most important means of spiritual reflection and the most important tool of philosophy.
In addition to this human, subjective reason (theoretical or epistemological reason), some philosophers accepted the existence of an objective reason; one the world through violence forming and ordering principle ( metaphysical or cosmological sense - universal reason, spirit world, logos, God). These philosophers include, for example, Heraclitus, Plotinus and Hegel. The debate about the existence or non-existence of such a world of reason and the possible nature are an important part of the history of philosophy.
The term " mind " is then used today as opposed to reason, if a phenomenon separately, separated from a larger context, is considered. In everyday language, the two terms are, however, not strictly distinguished from each other.
Importance
Both colloquially as well as in the history of philosophy, the term " reason" has several meanings, but overlap.
On the one hand it is considered as the basis for knowledge and insight. It lays the foundation for knowledge, by pretending a scheme and a frame of reference for knowledge. Distinction of reason is usually the mind as cognition or as the interaction of many different cognitive skills.
On the other reason is used in the sense of rational agency. In this sense, reason establishes a normative, philosophical ethics, which admits no appeal to other instances. It is found for example in Aristotle as the right measure or Immanuel Kant as the categorical imperative. In his history of Voltaire describes a steady development of mankind from primitive barbarism to supremacy of reason.
Finally, reason is used in the meaning of " higher order according to ". This view usually has the traits of a religious belief, and also in German Idealism, the reason is the " Mind of God ". The man and the whole of humanity has in idealism contributed to this reason, but it takes place more in him than that he has an influence on it. Even without a traditional religious terms, many people today are convinced that we encounter in the world of a higher reason of creation ( cf. Intelligent design). Physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger were convinced of the existence of a supernatural, rational order.
History of Philosophy
Antiquity
In Plato we find the distinction between noesis and dianoia. Noesis as the " intuitive Look of ideas " refers to the ability to recognize the being in its essence, while dianoia the conceptual, methodological and discursive way of knowledge says.
Aristotle particular reason at two different levels. For one, the thinking reason, the Logos, which is a conversation with himself, and secondly, the action-guiding reason, phronesis, which is directed to the practice. Exists between phronesis and logos a direct relationship ( EN VI 5, 1140 b20 ) The Logos determines the reasonable action, as it serves the medium to capture the virtue ( see mesotes gauge ) Man is not only a social being ( political animal ), but also a rational being ( zoon logon echon ) ( Pol. I 2, 1253 a1 -18) as for Heraclitus or Anaxagoras was Aristotle the nous as a general, steady world principle. " Anaxagoras is right when he describes the mind ( nous ) as the one that can not be affected and is unmixed, for that very reason, because he posits him as a principle ( arché ) of the movement. Only under this condition he can move as Non-moving and reign as unmixed. " (Physics 5, 256 b24 f)
In the Stoa reason served to regulate the bodily passions and to arrive at a balanced and virtuous life. Man is part of nature and task of reason is to add life in the cosmic order ( logos). Reason can not go against the order of nature itself. So Cicero asks: " Is there something inherently what happens against reason (ratio)? ( Talks in Tusculum, Book 4, 79 f.) In Seneca we find the answer: "The very nature, one has to take the leader: it observes the reason (ratio), and this she asks for advice. "
Medieval Europe
The Latin terminology translated noesis with intellect and with dianoia ratio. The philosophy of the Middle Ages was marked at its beginning by the idea of integration of religion and philosophy. Both should not be over one another in contradictions. An important precursor to this was Augustine of Hippo: " There are two different remedies that have come successively applied, namely authority and reason. The authority requires faith and prepares the people for the reason. The reason leads to insight and knowledge. But is the authority not rely entirely on reason, since one has to consider who to believe, and no less is also the already obvious and perceived truth undoubtedly the highest authority. "It is no longer nature, as in the Stoa, but a transcendent divine will, as in Neo-Platonism, which is the measure of human action. "The first destruction of the rational soul is the will to do what prohibits the highest and innermost truth. As a result, the man from Paradise was in our earthly world ejected, thereby reaching from eternity into TIMELINESS, from the abundance in the lack of the power in the weakness, but not essential goodness to essentially bad. For no creature is bad. "
God but was thought in the Middle Ages as an instance that is the parent of all human thinking, so far as possible at Peter Damian, that thinking has its origin in the devil and nothing avails before God. Accordingly, he took the view that philosophy the " handmaiden of theology " is.
Thomas Aquinas considered it necessary, however, that the knowledge of the world must not be founded on error, because it the right faith is endangered in God. " Thus it is evident that the opinion of certain people is wrong, say it come to the truth of faith does not depends on what you mean about the creatures, if you have only in relation to God being right about [ ... ] because the error as to the creatures turns into a false opinion of God and leads the minds of the people away from God, to whom she seeks faith but should steer by the error of subordinating the creatures of other causes. " ( ScG II 3, No. 864). For Thomas is an action that bends irrational instincts, bad. " Any wish that deviates from reason, this may now be right or wrong, is always bad. " ( STh I / II 19 a.5 )
In the pursuit of high scholasticism, beliefs and reason developed to separate again. Important representatives of this trend were John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. When Meister Eckhart and Martin Luther was intellectus turn equated with reason and rational common sense, the mind ( intellect / noesis ) as the essential knowledge of the discursive and argumentative operating reason (ratio / dianoia ) was superior.
Non-Western Philosophy
Similar approaches can be found in almost all cultures. In the Islamic tradition, the influential philosopher Avicenna was the reason described as a continuous emanation of God. Eastern wisdom teachings such as yoga and Zen teach the limits and contradictions of reason and how to get rid of it.
Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa emphasized that the reason is a special ability of the people who can only exert their force through education. "Man acts as a human being to animal like a belehrter human to untaught. The taught namely sees the letters of the alphabet ( Litteras alphabetical ) as well as the uninstructed. However, the forms taught by various assortment of letters syllables ( syllabas ) and of syllables and words from these sentences. This may not be the uninstructed, because it lacks the art that the training taught by his reason, has acquired (as of exercitato intellectu ). So the man can by the force of his reason, the natural knowledge images ( species naturales ) to assemble and to separate and create from them knowledge and understanding character images of reason and art. This man towers over the animals and taught the untaught because he a trained and educated Reason ( exercitatum et reformatum intellectum ) has. "
In Cusa 's like later in Kant, reason the highest level in the triad senses - mind - reason. While the mind summarizes the diverse sensations, the rational insight is in the vision of the Higher still beyond the mind. The unity of reason itself as the most basic synopsis of the whole he described with reference to Raymond Llullus as a triad of (1) the knower, (2) is detected, and (3) the process of cognition. The intellect exceeds the ratio so far, because he from what is discursively separated in the ratio ( intelligens, intelligible, intelligere ) forms a unit. This trinity of ( 1) wholeness ( indivisio ), (2 ) differentiation ( discretio ) and ( 3) connection ( conexio ) refers to the theory of categories with Charles S. Peirce and the process philosophy with Alfred North Whitehead, in whose category of Elemental (see process and reality). The unity of reason is the interplay of opposites traps ( Coincidentia oppositorum ). As the mind, so also the reason is limited. The essence of God as light comes to meet her, her remains closed. " Therefore, the reason moved to the wisdom than toward their actual life. And it is sweet to every mind, the origin of life, although he is inaccessible, constantly ascend. [ ... ] What if someone loves something because it is adorable, he is pleased that in the infinite and inexpressible Lovable reasons for love to find them. "
Education
The European Age of Enlightenment is based on the idea that reason is able to bring the truth to light. The religion of reason to overcome the dogmatic oppression and the belief in authority of the Christian religion and bring freedom and prosperity for all. Such was the rationalism of reason "pure ", ie independent of the empirical experiences recognizing that in Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, the basis of the philosophical systems was made. The concept of human reason was often equated with consciousness, self- consciousness or spirit. In rationalism, the reason the central element of the cognitive process dar. With their deductive findings are therefore possible that can be achieved even without sensory perceptions. This contrasts with the empiricism (eg David Hume ) who denies a possibility of knowledge a priori, ie without experience.
Kant
Immanuel Kant led end of the 18th century, the approaches of rationalism and empiricism in his critical philosophy along. With Kant was finally the reason its importance as the over the mind higher cognition principle. He defined the mind as the bound of sensory impressions, a posteriori working knowledge assets. The reason he distinguished between the ( "pure" ) theoretical and practical reason. The theoretical reason is the ability to draw conclusions, according to Kant, to examine themselves and to reach independent of experience to the a priori ideas of reason ( soul, God, world). In his work Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tries above all to show the limits and the conditional nature of human reason. This enabled him to free the concept of reason of metaphysical speculation and pave the way for a scientific metaphysics. Kant thus contributed significantly to the most important methods practiced today in science at are operated alternately in the development of theory and the empirical experiment. Practical reason, however, refers to the set of ethical principles to which the will is subject to and shall conduct and so the action individually and socially.
Hegel
After Kant had described the boundaries of knowledge and reason, some representatives of German idealism did not want to put up with this. Hegel recognizes Kant's understanding of reason as the reason ( substance) of freedom to express. But he calls Kant's position as subjective, because he just concede the subject to be able to recognize true appearances of things and not even this, as they are in themselves. To get beyond that, it takes an absolute reason. With him it is to understand the speculative asset, the Absolute in the exercise of all of its moments. For him it is the unity, and meaningful reason that goes out forever from itself, so divided by realized in the course of history in ever new phenomena as (time) Mind and Nature (or materialized ), again in the unit to fall and so " to (or in ) returns itself." Hegel says, because it takes back everything in themselves and in their shape (the unit ) brings, so basically have no limit, it is infinite, and because they only recognize himself, absolutely. The Absolute is God Himself, the absolute spirit for him. To know Him is the ultimate goal of all philosophy of Hegel. The connection of reason with the process of history has subsequently revealed only by Marxism a very significant effect. Reason and progress ( economic, scientific, technical, social) have since been closely associated with each other in their social significance. The concept of freedom is the reason of the Enlightenment, however, was largely suppressed.
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer distinguishes mind as the ability to recognize and philosophical reason than that to the abstract, discursive knowledge. Reason he considered specifically human, while also understanding ( higher ) are required at animals. These are sometimes even able to detect multi-step causal relationships intellectually, but could not think rationally because it lacked them to abstract concepts and ideas.
Modern
Given the horrors of the 20th century ( the Holocaust, imperialism ), in which they also saw a connection with industrialization, a critique of rationality was drafted by members of the Frankfurt School. She criticizes the modern scientific enterprise and its facts faith, which is determined by the positivism. The reason and the mind had become an instrument of repression of the individual and have the " self-liberation forces " of reason almost suffocated. Jürgen Habermas, the " instrumental reason " ( Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer ) the intersubjective " communicative reason " the life world over, based on domination and non-violence and mutual recognition. Is needed is a new level of enlightenment that - is not yet completed - according to Habermas.
Pope John Paul II thematized in his thirteenth encyclical Fides et Ratio in 1998 the tension between reason and faith from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI. attacked the idea on his predecessor in his speech at the University of Regensburg on 12 September 2006 and in his statements to the image of God the Catholic Church.
Neuroscience
In neuroscience mind is as fluid intelligence, that is, the ability for logical thinking and problem solving, construed. The competent neural structures located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ( DLPFC ). If this part of the brain injured, the affected patients behave "dumb " ( for example, remain stubborn in a behavior, although the situation has greatly changed). Under the reason for " reasonable behavior " skills necessary to be understood, including the estimation of material and social consequences of an action, the experience-based putting up Handungszielen and control selfish behavior impulses. The corresponding structures are mainly localized in the orbitofrontal cortex ( OFC). People with injuries in these areas show enhanced " unreasonable " behavior ( eg, go big risks against their better judgment, a ).