Revival: The Psychology of Reasoning (1923)

This Book owes its origin to the indefinable sense of uneasiness and discontent into which I was thrown by the perusal of some of the best treatises on Logic. These treatises had failed to explain the nature of the logical or reasoning faculty, though purporting to indicate the laws which govern its proper functioning. Even the work of John Stuart Mill, which still remains in my opinion the best, was no more convincing than the rest. And the more I read of such books the less satisfied I became and the stonger became my desire to understand clearly what constituted reasoning. As for the psychologists I found to my surprise that they either omitted reasoning altogether, or alluded to it in a most superficial manner.

Eugenio Rignano

Chapter I On the Mnemonic Origin and Nature of Affective Tendencies Chapter II Attention Part I: Affective Conflict and Unity of Consciousness Chapter III Attention Part II: Vividness and Connection Chapter IV What is Reasoning Chapter V The Evolution of Reasoning Part I: From Concrete reasoning to Abstract Reasoning Chapter VI The Evolution of Reasoning Part II From Intuition to Deduction Chapter VII The Higher Forms of Reasoning Part II: Mathematical Reasoning in its Phases of symbolic condensation and symbolic inversion Chapter IX The Higher Forms of Reasoning Part III: Mathematics and Mathematical Logic Chapter X "Intentional" Reasoning Part I: Dialectic Reasoning Chapter XI "Intentional" reasoning Part II: Metaphysical Reasoning Chapter XII The Different Logical Types of Mind Chapter XIII The Pathology of Reasoning Part I: The Incoherence and Illogicality of Dreams Chapter XIV The Pathology of Reasoning Part III: Incoherent Insanity due to Mono-affectivism Chapter XV The Pathology of Reasoning Part III: Incoherent Insanity due to Instability, Impotence or Absence of the Affective Tendencies Chapter XVI Conscious and Unconscious reasoning Conclusion Reasoning in Relation to Vital Finalism Index