A few pages of "Reflective reasoning and philosophy".

Upon Reflection, Ep. 8: Reflective Reasoning & Philosophy

On this episode, I read one of my articles from 2021 titled, “Reflective Reasoning and Philosophy” in Philosophy Compass. Both philosophers and cognitive scientists seem to think that philosophical thinking could depend on whether we reason intuitively or reflectively. In this paper, I review the claims, scientific methods, evidence, and what we may need to do to improve our understanding of reflection’s role in philosophical thinking.

A screenshot of the first page of the journal article.

As with all of my writing, a free preprint can be found on my CV at byrdnick.com/cv under “Publications“.

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Nick Byrd

Nick is a cognitive scientist at Florida State University studying reasoning, wellbeing, and willpower. Check out his blog at byrdnick.com/blog

4 thoughts on “Upon Reflection, Ep. 8: Reflective Reasoning & Philosophy”

  1. Hello. Your notion of reflective reasoning seems to mirror my way of viewing things, facially anyway: trying…to think better…(so that we can) do the best we can, with what we have and know. More and more it appears people don’t reflect before acting upon their thoughts. An outcome of modernity and postmodernism perhaps. (An aside: I am leaning towards a feeling about metaphysics that appears to be gaining ground: it is pointless.) Thank you.

  2. Should this be too far beyond your notions of reflection, I will understand. I still question it, myself. But here is my thesis, several years old now: A totality of circumstances may decide whether a thing is best viewed in the cool, dim shadow of abstraction, or the warm, bright light of reality.

    1. It may not be beyond what I have in mind than different. I am not sure that reflection must be abstract or concrete, warm or cool, bright or shadowy. People like me think of reflection as involving two things: stepping back from our initial impulse and consciously considering reasons (for/against that or an alternative impulse).

  3. Thanks for your insight. Much appreciated. We may not be on the same wavelength but that is OK with me—it is still good to share ideas. I learned a lot from reading Davidson,Rorty and, yes, even John Searle.

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