Discern vs Reason - What's the difference?
discern | reason |
To detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.
* {{quote-book
, year=1875
, author=Jules Verne
, title=The Survivors of the Chancellor
, chapter=1
To perceive, recognize, or comprehend with the mind; to descry.
* {{quote-book
, year=1842
, author=Charles Dickens
, title=American Notes for General Circulation
To distinguish something as being different from something else; to differentiate.
* {{quote-book
, year=1651
, author=Thomas Hobbes
, title=Leviathan
To perceive differences.
A cause:
# That which causes something: an efficient cause, a proximate cause.
#* 1996 , (w), : Evolution and the Meanings of Life , page 198:
# A motive for an action or a determination.
#* 1806 , Anonymous, Select Notes to Book XXI, in, (Alexander Pope), translator, The (Odyssey) of (Homer) , volume 6 (London, F.J. du Roveray), page 37:
#* 1881 , (Henry James), (The Portrait of a Lady) , chapter 10:
# An excuse: a thought or a consideration offered in support of a determination or an opinion; that which is offered or accepted as an explanation.
#* 1966 , (Graham Greene), ((Penguin Classics) edition, ISBN 0140184945), page 14:
(label) Rational]] thinking (or the capacity for it; the cognitive [[faculty, faculties, collectively, of conception, judgment, deduction and intuition.
* 1970 , (Hannah Arendt), On Violence (ISBN 0156695006), page 62:
*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) Something reasonable, in accordance with thought; justice.
* (rfdate) (Edmund Spenser):
Ratio; proportion.
To exercise the rational faculty; to deduce inferences from premises; to perform the process of deduction or of induction; to ratiocinate; to reach conclusions by a systematic comparison of facts.
Hence: To carry on a process of deduction or of induction, in order to convince or to confute; to formulate and set forth propositions and the inferences from them; to argue.
To converse; to compare opinions.
To arrange and present the reasons for or against; to examine or discuss by arguments; to debate or discuss.
(rare) To support with reasons, as a request.
To persuade by reasoning or argument.
To overcome or conquer by adducing reasons.
To find by logical process; to explain or justify by reason or argument.
In lang=en terms the difference between discern and reason
is that discern is to perceive differences while reason is to persuade by reasoning or argument.As verbs the difference between discern and reason
is that discern is to detect with the senses, especially with the eyes while reason is to exercise the rational faculty; to deduce inferences from premises; to perform the process of deduction or of induction; to ratiocinate; to reach conclusions by a systematic comparison of facts.As a noun reason is
a cause:.discern
English
Verb
(en verb)citation, passage=Meanwhile the brig had altered her tack, and was moving slowly to the east. Three hours later and the keenest eye could not have discerned her top-sails above the horizon.}}
citation, passage=If they discern' any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they ' discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.}}
citation, passage=The severity of judgement, they say, makes men censorious and unapt to pardon the errors and infirmities of other men: and on the other side, celerity of fancy makes the thoughts less steady than is necessary to discern exactly between right and wrong.}}
- He was too young to discern right from wrong.
Derived terms
* discernible * discernment * indiscernibleAnagrams
* *reason
English
(wikipedia reason)Noun
(en noun)- There is a reason why so many should be symmetrical: The selective advantage in a symmetrical complex is enjoyed by all the subunits
- This is the reason why he proposes to offer a libation, to atone for the abuse of the day by their diversions.
- Ralph Touchett, for reasons best known to himself, had seen fit to say that Gilbert Osmond was not a good fellow
- I have forgotten the reason' he gave for not travelling by air. I felt sure that it was not the correct ' reason , and that he suffered from a heart trouble which he kept to himself.
- And the specific distinction between man and beast is now, strictly speaking, no longer reason (the lumen naturale of the human animal) but science
Magician’s brain, passage=The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason . The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.}}
- I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme.
- (Barrow)
Synonyms
* (that which causes) cause * (motive for an action) rationale, motive * (thought offered in support) excuseDerived terms
* age of reason * everything happens for a reason * for some reason * for no good reason * for XYZ reason * have reason * in reason * instrumental reason * reasonability * reasonable * reasonableness * reasonist * reasonless * rhyme or reason * stand to reason * unreason * with reason * within reasonVerb
(en verb)- I reasoned the matter with my friend.
- to reason''' one into a belief; to '''reason one out of his plan
- to reason down a passion
- to reason''' out the causes of the librations of the moon