Reasoning represents one of the great advances that human beings have made in their ability to understand and make sense of the world. It has been described as a 'complex weave of abilities that help you get someone else's point, explain a complicated idea, generate reasons for your viewpoints, evaluate the reasons given by others, decide what information to accept or reject, see the pros as well as the cons and so forth'.Yet it is also the case that reasoning does not come naturally but must be learnt and can be improved.

Let us begin with an easy example. Imagine you hold an apple in one hand and an orange in the other. Now, at first sight, these two objects appear to be completely different; each would seem to be understandable only in its own terms—that is, in a way unique to each apple and each orange. However, we are better able to understand them and to communicate what we think about them when we start to make connections. Here are some examples:

-An apple is not an orange.

• An apple and an orange are similar: both are pieces of fruit.

• This apple will be, roughly speaking, the same as all the other apples

I have eaten.

• If I eat this orange and I like the taste, then I can assume that

generally I will like the taste of other oranges.

• You should eat this fruit because you are hungry.

Obviously, this list makes only a few simple connections between the two

particular pieces of fruit that we are considering; it also makes a few connections between the orange and the apple and other pieces of fruit generally; and the latter connections relate fruit to people.

If we did not make these connections, then every time we ate an orange, for example, it would be a new experience. We would not be able to rely on past experience or on our experiences with other things; nor would we be able to make any predictions about future experience. Such a world might be interesting (as each morning you drank your orange juice and had a whole new experience), but it would also be extremely confusing. Moreover, if you think about a more complex example (say, deciding to study for a university degree) you can see that, without the ability to make connections between things, you would not be able to make your decision in the way that all of us take for granted (by thinking, for example,

'A university degree will help me get a better job'). When we start to make connections, we are able to know things of which we have no direct experience (and which may not yet have happened). Of course, since we live in a society in which Reasoning is accepted as the main method of processing information, we already use reasoning, but we usually do not think about it.

Often, we can feel reasonably certain about our knowledge because it is based on evidence of things that we do know about. For example:

In the past, when driving down the freeway after work, I have found that

there is usually a traffic jam. Because of the traffic jam, it always takes a

long time to get home. So, today, because I need to get home quickly, I

had better leave work earlier.

The conclusion that 'I had better leave work earlier' follows from the evidence or reasons given for it. We can say that it is a 'reasonable' conclusion. Using reasoning requires us to look for and rely on structures of connections between

separate things or events in the world; it also requires us to make an active effort to create these structures—to make the connections that we cannot easily see.

The two main kinds of relationships that underpin these structures are:

• how things relate to one another, at any given moment (syntagmatic relationships such as 'an orange is a citrus fruit' or 'citrus fruits are edible')

• how things relate to one another, over time (paradigmatic relationships such as 'eating too many oranges made me feel sick' or 'if I want vitamin C, then I should eat an orange').

Working out the precise relationship requires attention to a number of

'patterns' that might help us to see how one thing is linked to another. These patterns can be understood through concepts such as:

• similarity/difference

• commonality/inconsistency

• necessity and sufficiency.

When we make these connections, we are able to function much more

effectively and to make sense of the world around us. In particular, we are more capable of communicating our ideas and discussing knowledge with other people.

The things, then, that we do with reasoning, as a form of communication, are:

• arguing ('You should not believe what you see on television because ... ')4

• explaining ('Digital television has been introduced because ... ')

• making decisions CI think we should buy a digital television receiver because ... ')

• predicting the future ('I expect digital television to make pay television better

because ... ')

• exploring issues ('How will digital television link to the Internet?')

• finding answers ('Why did the government decide on a higher-quality digital television standard?')

• justifying actions ('When first introduced, I thought subscribing to pay television was not a good idea because ... ').

So, smart thinking is about reasoning, which is about the use and communication of knowledge. Researching, reading, analysing, testing, checking, planning, and writing all depend on understanding those interrelationships. Once you

understand that knowledge consists of innumerable interrelations between small 'bits' of information, then you will be able to find, shape, and use knowledge for

yourself.

But reasoning is also about people: the authors and audiences of arguments, explanations, and so on. And it is in relation to the human, social aspect of reasoning that we must really be 'smart'. Reasoning is not just formal logic; nor is it an abstract way of thinking about ideas. It is always a social act. People always use reasoning for particular purposes (be they economic, political, or whatever). They all have different perspectives on the issues being debated. Their age, class, race, gender, and ethnicity all influence the broad structures upon which they rely in reasoning. If we forget that reasoning has this social aspect, then we will run the risk of failing to think effectively (this point will be explored in more detail in later chapters). The connections and relations between ideas, events, proposals, and so on only become meaningful in the context of how, when, where, and why they are

communicated with others.