Sympathy vs Reason - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between sympathy and reason

is that sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion while reason is a cause:.

As a verb 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.

sympathy

English

(wikipedia sympathy)

Noun

(sympathies)

A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.

The ability to share the feelings of another.

A mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.

* 1997 , Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault'', page 67, ''The Renaissance Episteme (Totem Books, Icon Books; ISBN 1840460865)

'Sympathy' likened anything to anything else in universal attraction, e.g. the fate of men to the course of the planets.

Tendency towards or approval of the aims of a movement.

Usage notes

* Used similarly to empathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, (term) is stronger and more intimate, while sympathy is weaker and more distant; see .

Antonyms

* contempt (context-dependent)

Derived terms

* (l) * (l) * (l), (l)

reason

English

(wikipedia reason)

Noun

(en noun)

A cause:

# That which causes something: an efficient cause, a proximate cause.

#* 1996 , (w), : Evolution and the Meanings of Life , page 198:

There is a reason why so many should be symmetrical: The selective advantage in a symmetrical complex is enjoyed by all the subunits

# 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:

This is the reason why he proposes to offer a libation, to atone for the abuse of the day by their diversions.

#* 1881 , (Henry James), (The Portrait of a Lady) , chapter 10:

Ralph Touchett, for reasons best known to himself, had seen fit to say that Gilbert Osmond was not a good fellow

# 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:

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.

(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:

And the specific distinction between man and beast is now, strictly speaking, no longer reason (the lumen naturale of the human animal) but science

*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= 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.}}

(label) Something reasonable, in accordance with thought; justice.

* (rfdate) (Edmund Spenser):

I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme.

Ratio; proportion.

(Barrow)

Synonyms

* (that which causes) cause * (motive for an action) rationale, motive * (thought offered in support) excuse

Derived 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 reason

Verb

(en verb)

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.

I reasoned the matter with my friend.

(rare) To support with reasons, as a request.

To persuade by reasoning or argument.

to reason''' one into a belief; to '''reason one out of his plan

To overcome or conquer by adducing reasons.

to reason down a passion

To find by logical process; to explain or justify by reason or argument.

to reason''' out the causes of the librations of the moon

Derived terms

* reasoner * reason out

Statistics

External links

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