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Old Jan 13th, 2004, 10:58 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by The One and Only...
But arguments, and, indeed, the principle of induction itself, stem from logic. What this means is, regardless of whether or not we are conscious of it, we do reason subconsciously since the beginning of our life. Reasoning is, then, an instinct through which we derive various conclusions about our surroundings and later, more often through conscious thought (instinct can be conscious, after all) about abstractions.
Disagree. Reasoning is a product of language learning. Reacting to an attacking bear is not 'reasoning' - it is an instinctual response of course, but not reasoning in any conventional sense. Nor is finding food or water, or flying back to the nest, or taking a shit. Just about any animal can do this. Unless you want to say that fish 'reason' too, but then the term becomes diluted and practically meaningless. Furthermore, per Wittgenstein's private language argument, there can be no language that is exclusively one's own - one would not be able to assign meaning to these private signs. Reasoning, because of its necessary association to language, is therefore not instinctual and not present in the subconscious at birth (or at all - there is no subconscious 'language').
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