ratiocination

Definition

Reasoning, conscious deliberate inference; the activity or process of reasoning.

Etymology

Borrowed from French ratiocination, from Latin ratiōcinātiō (“argumentation, reasoning, ratiocination; a syllogism”), from ratiōcinātus (“reckoned”) + -tiō (suffix forming a noun relating to some action or the result of an action). Ratiōcinātus is the perfect passive participle of ratiōcinor (“to compute, reckon; to argue, infer”), from ratiō (“reason, explanation”) (from reor (“to calculate, reckon”), possibly from Proto-Italic *rēōr, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂reh₁- (“to put in order”)) + -cinor, modelled after vāticinor (“to foretell, prophesy”), equivalent to ratiocinate + -ion.

Example Sentences

• "But it will be apparent from the refutation of the ſecond Falſification, wherewith you charge the Author of the Letters, that theſe miſchievous conſequences are rightly drawn from the wicked principle layd down by Vaſquez [Gabriel Vásquez] in the ſame place, and accordingly, that that Jeſuit hath not done violence to the rules of ratiocination, but to thoſe of the Goſpel."
• "He'd run in Debt by Diſputation, / And pay with Ratiocination. / All this by Syllogiſm, true / In Mood and Figure, he wou'd do."
• "Reasoning, in the extended sense in which I use the term, and in which it is synonymous with Inference, is popularly said to be of two kinds: reasoning from particulars to generals, and reasoning from generals to particulars; the former being called Induction, the latter Ratiocination or Syllogism. […] The meaning intended by these expressions is, that Induction is inferring a proposition from propositions less general than itself, and Ratiocination is inferring a proposition from propositions equally or more general."

Related Words