THE METHOD OF ARGUMENT

The Method of Argument ~ 81 ~ should then have no direct perception of all that part of the universe which is now visible to our eyes. We could only infer it (p. 48). Later, he goes on to remark: Of all the facts in the universe of fact, we can know some, relatively few, by sense perception. But how can we come to know of others? By inference, or reasoning. Inference or reasoning is a mode of thinking by which, staring from something known, we end by forming a belief that there exists a certain fact hitherto unknown. How can we be sure that there is any validity in this thought-process that we call ‘reasoning’? How can we be sure that the belief which we from by reasoning is true? The answer to this is that we do begin by simply assuming that our methods of reasoning are reliable, that they lead us to conclusions, which correspond with facts. Starting from facts known by sense