Deductive reasoning
Epistemology

Deductive reasoning plays an important role in epistemology. Epistemology is concerned with the question of justification, i.e. to point out which beliefs are justified and why. Deductive inferences are able to transfer the justification of the premises onto the conclusion. So while logic is interested in the truth-preserving nature of deduction, epistemology is interested in the justification-preserving nature of deduction. There are different theories trying to explain why deductive reasoning is justification-preserving. According to reliabilism, this is the case because deductions are truth-preserving: they are reliable processes that ensure a true conclusion given the premises are true. Some theorists hold that the thinker has to have explicit awareness of the truth-preserving nature of the inference for the justification to be transferred from the premises to the conclusion. One consequence of such a view is that, for young children, this deductive transference does not take place since they lack this specific awareness.
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