misreason

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ reason

Verb

misreason (third-person singular simple present misreasons, present participle misreasoning, simple past and past participle misreasoned)

1. To reason badly; to form an irrational conclusion.
   • 1817, Rev. James Gilchrist, The Intellectual Patrimony; Or a Father's Instructions, page 78:

     I could not, indeed, so strangely misreason as to suppose that sensual indulgence produced superior intelect; but I supposed that in some instances superior intellect might cause sensual indulgence.

   • 2006, Evan Selinger, Robert P. Crease, The Philosophy of Expertise, page 132:

     We need not even enter the courtroom to flood ourselves with memorial evidence of the "stern lesson" that "[p]eople disguise the truth in certain situations, whether out of deviousness, self-deception, ignorance, or fear. They also, of course, misremember, misjudge, and misreason.”

   • 2009, Stephen F. Brown, “Gerald Odonis' Tractatus de suppositionibus: What is suppositio communicabilis?”, in William Duba, Chris Schabel, editors, Gerald Odonis, Doctor Moralis and Franciscan Minister General, pages Gerald Odonis, Doctor Moralis and Franciscan Minister General:

     Its incipit is Quoniam qui nominum virtutis sunt ignari, de facili paralogizantur, et ipsi disputantes et alio audientes ("In arguments those who are not well acquainted with the power of words misreason both in their own discussions and when they listen to others") a line taken from the introductory chapter of Aristotle's On Sophistical Refutations

   • 2017, Friedrich Meinecke, Macropolitics: Essays on the Philosophy and Science of Politics:

     Where, however, this is not merely a case of the ability of humans to misperceive or to misreason, it seems rather to indicate a reasonable conservative rule that holds that the entire body of science is more probable than a seemingly inconsistent observation.

Noun

misreason (uncountable)

1. Irrational or illogical thinking.
   • 1879, D. B. Bernard, The Temperance Offering, page 211:

     A rift through the clouds is seen, Misrule and misreason are forced to fly, Law takes her scepter again;

   • 1989, Lewin Roger, In the Age of Mankind, page 32:

     That line of misreason runs as follows: “ If evolution is true, and we did come from the apes, then why are there apes still living?”

   • 2007, Dana Polan, Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film, page 361:

     While there could be intervention at the level of material conditions, Martin argued also for reform efforts at the point of personal consciousness—the spirit of citizens who could be educated in such a way as to ward off misreason.