Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of EducationOntario. Department of Education
Science
Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education
Ontario. Department of Education
Education; Educational psychology
inductive lesson, it evidently applies this conclusion to some degree in
the study of the further examples, or thinks deductively, even during
the inductive process.
=Development of Reasoning Power.=--Since reasoning is essentially a
purposive form of thinking, it is evident that any reasoning process
will depend largely upon the presence of some problem which shall
stimulate the mind to seek out relations necessary to its solution.
Power to reason, therefore, is conditioned by the ability to attend
voluntarily to the problem and discover the necessary relations. It is
further evident that the accuracy of any reasoning process must be
dependent upon the accuracy of the judgments upon which the conclusions
are based. But these judgments in turn depend for their accuracy upon
the accuracy of the concepts involved. Correct reasoning, therefore,
must depend largely upon the accuracy of our concepts, or, in other
words, upon the old knowledge at our command. On the other hand,
however, it has been seen that both deductive and inductive reasoning
follow to some degree a systematic form. For this reason it may be
assumed that the practice of these forms should have some effect in
giving control of the processes. The child, for instance, who habituates
himself to such thought processes as AB equals BC, and AC equals BC,
therefore AB equals AC, no doubt becomes able thereby to grasp such
relations more easily. Granting so much, however, it is still evident
that close attention to, and accurate knowledge of, the various terms
involved in the reasoning process is the sure foundation of correct
reasoning.
CHAPTER XXIX
FEELING
=Sensuous and Ideal Feeling.=--We have noted (Chapter XXIV), that in
addition to the general feeling tone accompanying an act of attention,
and already described as a feeling of interest, there are two important
classes of feeling known respectively as sensuous and ideal feeling.
When a person says: "I feel tired" or "I feel hungry," he is referring
to the feeling side of certain organic sensations. When he says: "The
air feels cold" or "The paper feels smooth," he is referring to the
feeling side of temperature and touch sensations. These are, therefore,
examples of sensuous feeling. On the other hand, to say "I feel angry"
or "I feel afraid," is to refer to a feeling state which accompanies
perhaps the perception of some object, the recollection or anticipation
of some act, or the inference that something is sure to happen, etc.
These latter states are therefore known as ideal feelings.
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