Rea"son*ing, n. 1.
The act or process of adducing a reason or reasons; manner of
presenting one's reasons.
2. That which is offered in argument; proofs
or reasons when arranged and developed; course of argument.
His reasoning was sufficiently
profound.
Macaulay.
Syn. -- Argumentation; argument. -- Reasoning,
Argumentation. Few words are more interchanged than these; and
yet, technically, there is a difference between them. Reasoning
is the broader term, including both deduction and induction.
Argumentation denotes simply the former, and descends from the
whole to some included part; while reasoning embraces also the
latter, and ascends from the parts to a whole. See Induction.
Reasoning is occupied with ideas and their relations;
argumentation has to do with the forms of logic. A thesis is
set down: you attack, I defend it; you insist, I reply; you deny, I
prove; you distinguish, I destroy your distinctions; my replies
balance or overturn your objections. Such is argumentation. It
supposes that there are two sides, and that both agree to the same
rules. Reasoning, on the other hand, is often a natural
process, by which we form, from the general analogy of nature, or
special presumptions in the case, conclusions which have greater or
less degrees of force, and which may be strengthened or weakened by
subsequent experience.
