Reason vs. Assertion

Reasoning is also known in another term as logic, and the first modern philosopher who gave praise very much to it is Descartes. He was the one who discovered his own existence by just reasoning; Descartes says, "I think therefore I exist." Another philosopher who gave a lot of credits for reasoning is Hegel with his famous dicussion in his big book, Science of Logic, Hegel believes in his absolute logic as the only method in searching for truth. He says, "the rational is the real, and the real is the rational." Did he overstated his compliment for logic? Should logic be given the highest honor in playing its role as an excellent instrument in science and philosophy?


First of all, do all human beings live according to their own reasoning? Is it always the case that you must give a sounding reason before you eat? Nobody has to reason for eating a breakfast or a lunch; we eat just because of a natural reason: hungriness. We eat because we are hungry, and hungriness is not a reason but a state or a mood that we are always in if we don not eat. Eating is not caused by a reasoning; it is a disposition or a condition, a sufficient condition. By saying that eating is a sufficient condition, I mean eating is sufficient in order to maintain our lives because if we don't eat we will die. Living and eating have the same meaning. Thus, when I say I eat because I am hungry, or I eat because I have to is not a reasoning even it can be put into a logical statement if-then or because-of statement. Assertion is a condition that falls into this case. When I say that I am going to eat my lunch in 15 minutes, I am making an assertion without reasoning. An assertion is sometime known as a demand; however, it can also be presented by a reasoning. An assertion is not necessarily a reasoning all the time; sometime, when we demand something, we want to achieve it without reasoning. Most of the times, we need reasons why we do this or why we do that, and this is when an assertion becomes a reasoning.


Reasoning, in contrast, is more than just a reason. As I already stated above in the introductory paragraph that Reasoning means logic, and logic is a formal instrument that is used in science, especially in mathematics. In the instroductory part of Hegel's Science of Logic, Hegel taks about his pre-suppositional ideas for logic. The reason why I use the term presupposition is because Hegel made good intellectual guesses by giving good evaluations when he was trying to introduce the Science of Logic to his readers. Before reading Hegel's book, I never had an idea that logic was the absolute tool to use to search for the truth. It was because I was not an excellent logician and because I lacked the knowledge to believe that logics was the best tool ever known. Talking about why I use the term presupposition, I mean I want to differentiate it with hypothesis. The term hypothesis is a mathematical term that is used especially in geometry to prove the trueness of a theorem. To come to a conclusion that this theorem is right, we need to prove it using two parts: a hypothesis and a conclusion. There must be several operational equations or tasks to be done to connect a hypothesis to a conclusion. The difference between a hypothesis and a presupposition is that in a hypothesis, we are given real facts, and facts that are known as information while what is given in a presupposition is just an intellect guess. We can presuppose about anything and almost about everything even we do not know for sure if what we suppose has ever really happened or not. For example, when a science-fiction writer writes a story about space-ship aliens, he or she presupposes that the universal aliens exist in such and such planet or in such and such galaxy without any true knowledge or any specific knowledge of whether those aliens really exist.


Back to Hegel's Introduction to Logic, Hegel has made good presuppositions before proving in the body part of his book that logics is a science and also the best way in searching for the truth. However, to believe in everything Hegel wrote about the truth of logics depends on how well the readers understand his viewpoints and every proof that he presented in his book. For myself, I know that there are people who would not believe in Hegel, especially the Christians, Since a lot of Christians believe in miracles, and since miracles are phenomena or events that cannot be explained scientifically or logically, the Christian would not think that the rational is the real. Miracles are events that are sometimes known as unreal or mystical; therefore, miracles are not rational events; for example, sometimes, science cannot explain why a blind person can see without taking any therapy or any medecine and we know that Jesus is the one who did a miracle so that a blind man could see, and this is an event that no science can explain it according to its scientific methods. Thus, we see that what Hegel says is not correct because the irrational in Jesus' case would be the real thing that happened in the history of the Bible. So, not everything that is real that would be rational as Hegel said. To conclude for the reason why I use the term presupposition to refer to Hegel's intellectual ideas bout his logics, the above explantion is perhaps an enough proof to give out as a reason.


But that is not all what I want to say in this discussion, even logic is not always true because of the above example, I do believe that logic is one of the best tools to use in searching for the truth. This is where I have to go back to what I mean by an assertion. If we achieve our assertions, we prove that our own reasoning is true. In geometry, theorems are the assertions that are always proved to be true. When a scientist or a mathematician asserts something, they will set out to prove it true by mathematical methods or by scientific experiments, Finally, do we always live according to mathematical reasoning or a sound argument? I will leave this question to the readers to answer because sometimes we do something just because our natural instincts require us to do and because of eating so that we can live is a natural way nobody needs a reason not to.