Immanuel Kant Quotes

Since when was an emotional argument won by logic?

Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic.

Persons not habituated to reason often argue absurdly, because, from particular instances, they deduce general conclusions, and extend the result of their limited experience of individuals indiscriminately to whole classes.

[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

Affect not little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of an argument.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

Mistakes are made on two counts: an argument is either based on error or incorrectly developed.

It is impossible to get anywhere without sinning against reason.

That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.

Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.

You explain right well, and you shew that you understand argument and are not a mere sophist since you accept that which cannot be denied.

Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is increasingly turning out people who have never heard enough conflicting arguments to develop the skills and discipline required to produce a coherent analysis, based on logic and evidence. The implications of having so many people so incapable of confronting opposing arguments with anything besides ad hominem responses reach far.

Riposte of "that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical," Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?

An argument can be logically valid, but unsound in that it contains a false premise and, therefore, leads to a false conclusion (e.g., Scientists are smart; smart people do not make mistakes; therefore, scientists do not make mistakes).

A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.

Since reasoning , or inference, the principal subject of logic, is an operation which usually takes place by means of words , and in complicated cases can take place in no other way: those who have not a thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances, amounting almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly.

I look upon logical proofs the way a well-bred girl looks upon a love letter

I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.

Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.

Research – and using what you learn from it to analyze every situation – is what separates being unreasonable from being irrational.

It is time to cease to argue about God , and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary forms of idolatry.

Reasoning is the pastime of my whole household, and all this reasoning has driven out Reason.

I never saw an instance of one or two disputants convincing the other by argument.

As a science, logic institutes an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning, and investigating the principles on which argumentation is conducted; as an art, it furnishes such rules as may be derived from those principles, for guarding against erroneous deductions.

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.