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As the study of argument is of clear importance to the reasons that we hold things to be true, logic is of essential importance to rationality. Arguments may be logical if they are "conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity", [1] while they are rational according to the broader requirement that they are based on reason and knowledge.
The argument from reason is a transcendental argument against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God (or at least a supernatural being that is the source of human reason). The best-known defender of the argument is C. S. Lewis .
The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, i.e. by a God which is immersed in nature itself. [4] Logic (logike) was the part of philosophy which examined reason (logos). [5] To achieve a happy life—a life worth living—requires logical thought. [4] The Stoics held that an understanding of ethics was impossible ...
The standards for evaluating non-deductive arguments may rest on different or additional criteria than truth—for example, the persuasiveness of so-called "indispensability claims" in transcendental arguments, [7] the quality of hypotheses in retroduction, or even the disclosure of new possibilities for thinking and acting.
[18] [24] But the terms "argument" and "inference" are often used interchangeably in logic. The purpose of arguments is to convince a person that something is the case by providing reasons for this belief. [25] [26] Many arguments in natural language do not explicitly state all the premises.
A standard view is that whether an argument is valid is a matter of the argument's logical form. Many techniques are employed by logicians to represent an argument's logical form. A simple example, applied to two of the above illustrations, is the following: Let the letters 'P', 'Q', and 'S' stand, respectively, for the set of men, the set of ...
According to reason-responsiveness accounts, to be rational is to be responsive to reasons. For example, dark clouds are a reason for taking an umbrella, which is why it is rational for an agent to do so in response. An important rival to this approach are coherence-based accounts, which define rationality as internal coherence among the agent ...
Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each party in the legal dispute. A closing argument, or summation, is the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the ...