[syn: intelligent, reasoning(a), thinking(a)]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Reasoning \Rea"son*ing\, n.
1. The act or process of adducing a reason or reasons; manner
of presenting one's reasons.
[1913 Webster]
2. That which is offered in argument; proofs or reasons when
arranged and developed; course of argument.
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His reasoning was sufficiently profound. --Macaulay.
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Syn: Argumentation; argument.
Usage: 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.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Reason \Rea"son\ (r[=e]"z'n), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Reasoned
(r[=e]"z'nd); p. pr. & vb. n. Reasoning.] [Cf. F.
raisonner. See Reason, n.]
1. To exercise the rational faculty; to deduce inferences
from premises; to perform the process of deduction or of
induction; to ratiocinate; to reach conclusions by a
systematic comparison of facts.
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2. Hence: To carry on a process of deduction or of induction,
in order to convince or to confute; to formulate and set
forth propositions and the inferences from them; to argue.
[1913 Webster]
Stand still, that I may reason with you, before the
Lord, of all the righteous acts of the Lord. --1
Sam. xii. 7.
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3. To converse; to compare opinions. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
reasoning
adj 1: endowed with the capacity to reason [syn: intelligent,
reasoning(a), thinking(a)]
n 1: thinking that is coherent and logical [syn: reasoning,
logical thinking, abstract thought]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
85 Moby Thesaurus words for "reasoning":
Vernunft, abstract thought, act of thought, analysis, analytic,
arguments, brain, brains, brainwork, cerebral, cerebration,
cogitation, conceit, conception, conceptive, conceptual,
conceptualization, creative thought, discourse of reason,
discursive reason, endopsychic, esprit, excogitation, explanation,
explication, gray matter, head, headpiece, headwork,
heavy thinking, hypothesis, idea, ideation, imageless thought,
intellect, intellection, intellectual, intellectual exercise,
intellectual faculty, intellectualization, intelligence,
intelligent, internal, logic, mens, mental, mental act,
mental capacity, mental labor, mental process, mentality,
mentation, mind, noesis, noetic, noological, nous, phrenic,
postulate, power of reason, premises, psyche, psychic, psychologic,
ratio, ratiocination, ratiocinative, ratiocinatory, rational,
rationale, rationality, rationalization, reason, reasoning faculty,
reasons, smarts, spiritual, straight thinking, subjective, theory,
thinking, thinking aloud, thinking out, thought, understanding