CF Dictionary · Knowledge & Epistemology
Objective Reasoning
Reasoning using facts, evidence, and logic that could convince any reasonable person — not opinions or intuitions.
Objective reasoning is reasoning that uses facts, evidence, and logic in a way that could convince any reasonable person — not just you. It can be written down, audited, and reproduced.
Why CF requires it
If your reasoning only persuades you, it's not objective. Persuasion is a bias-prone psychological event. Objective reasoning has to transcend your personal psychology.
What makes reasoning objective
- It uses public facts. Not private intuition.
- It can be written down. Words, formulas, diagrams — not vibes.
- It's approximately equally persuasive to strangers. Not especially persuasive to you personally.
- It survives multiple checks. Others can re-do the reasoning and reach the same conclusion.
- It distinguishes correct answer from why it's correct. A correct answer with no objective argument is inadequate.
What it's not
- Not certainty. Objective reasoning can still be wrong.
- Not emotionless. You can be moved and still reason objectively.
- Not impersonal in the bad sense. It can be friendly and direct.
CF uses objective reasoning to avoid overreach
If you can't check your work objectively, you don't understand it yet. This is part of overreach management.
"Objective reasoning involves facts, evidence and logic that you can put into words — not your opinions, feelings, intuition or biases." — criticalfallibilism.com