Reason Journal


• One paragraph summary of the key idea summarizing the major idea of the section.

The major idea of the Reason section is the human mind. This human mind in short consists of questioning, three kinds of knowledge, the ability to think and reason, and knowing. The human mind naturally questions life and its trials. The examination of faith is known as theology, whereas the philospohy is an examination of knowledge and reason. Thoeology attempts to understand the Church and God with the aid of chruch doctrine. A philosopher uses curiosity to examine knowledge and reason. The mind possesses three kinds of knowledge, which aquired through experience, authority, and reason. Thinking is a constant process caused by our perception of the world around us. However, our experiences and emotions can disrupt our train of true thought. Thinking can be affected by five errors, whihc are non-sequiturs, false premisses, "ad Hominem", Begging the Question, and Red Herrings. Each changes true thinking into false thinking because of misjudgments and hurried logic. To think critically, we need to know the facts, remember contradicitons, define our terms, be intellectually humble, and realize different perspectives. We begin to know something after we perceive it with our senses, categorizing the information, evaluating the information, symbolizing it and finally testing our new found knowledge.

• List and explain three of the most important ideas you want to remember from this week.

Five steps to cricital thinking-The five steps to critical thinking are know the facts, remember contradictions, define the terms, be intellectually humble, and look for different perspectives. Knowing the facts is the first step in thinking critically and is very important. Knowing facts helps one to think factually, and not based on opinions, which helps to prevent steortypical or biased thoughts. In remembering the principle of contradiciton, one realizes that something can't be itself and its opposite at the same time, thus formulating a solid thougt process. Next, one must define their terms. Defining terms prevents confusion in thinking and helps to establish a thought firmly. Defining one's terms means to clearly establish what is intended to be conveyed. Everyone must also be intellectually humble to think critically. We are always learning and are wrong from time to time. Thus, we must be humble and not be arrogant. Finally, one must look for different perspectives. There are often several different views on an issue, so one must realize and seek out the different perspectives to think well and critically

The human mind-The mind is extraordinarily complicated and complex, but humans have an idea of how it works. Our brain perceives whatever our senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell and relates the perception to memory, experiences and knowledge. If the perception is new to our brain, then we are now capable of recognizing the perception. However, perception can be altered by our emotions, for we may perceive differently when we are happy and sad. No person has an exact same perception as another because everyone has different emotions, experinces, memories, and knowlege. After perception, we think accordingly to our experience. We are always thinking because our senses are constantly encountering objects and our brain is constantly perceiving. Reason is a major factor in the human mind as well. In reason, humans use the experience of self and others, opinions, careful reflection, and conscience and someitmes morality to react to a perception.

Aristotle's ideas about living a good life-Aritotle summarized that there is only one plan for living well and being happy, but it is maimed by confusion between wants and needs. As humans, we often desire the unessessary. To live a happy life, we need to seek what is good for us. We need to seek bodily goods, external goods/wealth, and "goods of the soul". Seeking such goods helps us to develop good choice habits, which furthermore leads to the development of good moral character, or moral virtue. However, possessing bad habits interfere with our quest for good. Three aspects of moral virtue include temperence, courage, and justice. Success for a good life is dependant on having moral virtue and good habits, and being lucky or fortunate. Virtue stops us from making bad decisisons and choosing what is wrong and good fortune gives us goods that are hard to acquire by choice.

•One or two good images that remind you of key ideas.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/14567_.html

http://www.chetart.com/thought.html



•One good question you should keep with you to ponder.

Do my bad habits outweigh my good habits in seeking what is good for me?

•What should you try to do to make you a better person, a more faithful person, from this study?.

I need to try to follow the five steps for critical thinking and try to not fall victim to five thinking errors. I believe I need to focus more on what is good for me in my life, and try to end my bad habits. I do realize that my bad habits are harmful, so I need to focus on stopping them and using good judgements and good habits.

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