Explanation vs. Reason — What's the Difference?
Difference Between Explanation and Reason
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Compare with Definitions
Explanation
An explanation is a set of statements usually constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing rules or laws in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined.Explanation, in philosophy, is a set of statements that makes intelligible the existence or occurrence of an object, event, or state of affairs.
Reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic to seek truth and draw conclusions from new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.
Explanation
The act or process of explaining
Launched into a detailed explanation.
Reason
The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction
There are good reasons to learn a foreign language. See Usage Notes at because, why.
Explanation
Something that explains
That was supposedly the explanation for their misdeeds.
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Reason
A declaration made to explain or justify action, decision, or conviction
What reasons did she give for leaving?.
Explanation
A mutual clarification of misunderstandings; a reconciliation.
Reason
A fact or cause that explains why something exists or has occurred
The reason for the building's collapse is unknown.
Explanation
The act or process of explaining.
The explanation was long and drawn-out.
Reason
(Logic) A premise, usually the minor premise, of an argument.
Explanation
Something that explains, makes understandable.
An explanation for the UFO sightings was easily found.
Reason
The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; intelligence
"Most of us would like to believe that when we say something is right or wrong, we are using our powers of reason alone" (Carl Zimmer).
Explanation
A resolution of disputed points pursuant to discussion; a mutual clarification of disputed points; reconciliation.
Reason
The limit of what is reasonable
"It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or loves beyond reason, he is ready to go beyond reason to gratify his feelings" (Rudyard Kipling).
Explanation
The act of explaining, expounding, or interpreting; the act of clearing from obscurity and making intelligible; as, the explanation of a passage in Scripture, or of a contract or treaty.
Reason
A normal mental state; sanity
He has lost his reason.
Explanation
That which explains or makes clear; as, a satisfactory explanation.
Reason
To determine or conclude by logical thinking
The doctor reasoned that the patient had a virus.
Explanation
The meaning attributed to anything by one who explains it; definition; interpretation; sense.
Different explanations [of the Trinity].
Reason
To persuade or dissuade (someone) with reasons
"You boast ... of having reasoned him out of his absurd romance" (William Makepeace Thackeray).
Explanation
A mutual exposition of terms, meaning, or motives, with a view to adjust a misunderstanding, and reconcile differences; reconciliation; agreement; as, to come to an explanation.
Reason
To use the faculty of reason; think logically
What would lead you to reason so?.
Explanation
A statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances etc.;
The explanation was very simple
I expected a brief account
Reason
To talk or argue logically and persuasively
Tried to reason with her son to eat a good breakfast.
Explanation
Thought that makes something comprehensible
Reason
(Obsolete) To engage in conversation or discussion.
Explanation
The act of explaining; making something plain or intelligible;
I heard his explanation of the accident
Reason
A cause:
Reason
That which causes something: an efficient cause, a proximate cause.
The reason this tree fell is that it had rotted.
Reason
A motive for an action or a determination.
The reason I robbed the bank was that I needed the money.
If you don't give me a reason to go with you, I won't.
Reason
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.
Reason
(logic) A premise placed after its conclusion.
Reason
(uncountable) Rational thinking (or the capacity for it); the cognitive faculties, collectively, of conception, judgment, deduction and intuition.
Mankind should develop reason above all other virtues.
Reason
(obsolete) Something reasonable, in accordance with thought; justice.
Reason
Ratio; proportion.
Reason
(intransitive) To deduce or come to a conclusion by being rational
Reason
(intransitive) To perform a process of deduction or of induction, in order to convince or to confute; to argue.
Reason
To converse; to compare opinions.
Reason
(ambitransitive) 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.
Reason
To support with reasons, as a request.
Reason
(transitive) To persuade by reasoning or argument.
To reason one into a belief; to reason one out of his plan
Reason
To overcome or conquer by adducing reasons.
To reason down a passion
Reason
To find by logical process; to explain or justify by reason or argument.
To reason out the causes of the librations of the moon
Reason
A thought or a consideration offered in support of a determination or an opinion; a just ground for a conclusion or an action; that which is offered or accepted as an explanation; the efficient cause of an occurrence or a phenomenon; a motive for an action or a determination; proof, more or less decisive, for an opinion or a conclusion; principle; efficient cause; final cause; ground of argument.
I'll give him reasons for it.
The reason of the motion of the balance in a wheel watch is by the motion of the next wheel.
This reason did the ancient fathers render, why the church was called "catholic."
Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for that goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.
Reason
The faculty or capacity of the human mind by which it is distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior animals; the higher as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires. Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the intuitional faculty. Specifically, it is the intuitional faculty, or the faculty of first truths, as distinguished from the understanding, which is called the discursive or ratiocinative faculty.
We have no other faculties of perceiving or knowing anything divine or human, but by our five senses and our reason.
In common and popular discourse, reason denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends.
Reason is used sometimes to express the whole of those powers which elevate man above the brutes, and constitute his rational nature, more especially, perhaps, his intellectual powers; sometimes to express the power of deduction or argumentation.
By the pure reason I mean the power by which we become possessed of principles.
The sense perceives; the understanding, in its own peculiar operation, conceives; the reason, or rationalized understanding, comprehends.
Reason
Due exercise of the reasoning faculty; accordance with, or that which is accordant with and ratified by, the mind rightly exercised; right intellectual judgment; clear and fair deductions from true principles; that which is dictated or supported by the common sense of mankind; right conduct; right; propriety; justice.
I was promised, on a time,To have reason for my rhyme.
But law in a free nation hath been ever public reason; the enacted reason of a parliament, which he denying to enact, denies to govern us by that which ought to be our law; interposing his own private reason, which to us is no law.
The most probable way of bringing France to reason would be by the making an attempt on the Spanish West Indies.
Reason
Ratio; proportion.
When anything is proved by as good arguments as a thing of that kind is capable of, we ought not, in reason, to doubt of its existence.
Yet it were great reason, that those that have children should have greatest care of future times.
Reason
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.
Reason
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.
Stand still, that I may reason with you, before the Lord, of all the righteous acts of the Lord.
Reason
To converse; to compare opinions.
Reason
To arrange and present the reasons for or against; to examine or discuss by arguments; to debate or discuss; as, I reasoned the matter with my friend.
When they are clearly discovered, well digested, and well reasoned in every part, there is beauty in such a theory.
Reason
To support with reasons, as a request.
Reason
To persuade by reasoning or argument; as, to reason one into a belief; to reason one out of his plan.
Men that will not be reasoned into their senses.
Reason
To overcome or conquer by adducing reasons; - with down; as, to reason down a passion.
Reason
To find by logical processes; to explain or justify by reason or argument; - usually with out; as, to reason out the causes of the librations of the moon.
Reason
A rational motive for a belief or action;
The reason that war was declared
The grounds for their declaration
Reason
An explanation of the cause of some phenomenon;
The reason a steady state was never reached was that the back pressure built up too slowly
Reason
The capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination;
We are told that man is endowed with reason and capable of distinguishing good from evil
Reason
The state of having good sense and sound judgment;
His rationality may have been impaired
He had to rely less on reason than on rousing their emotions
Reason
A justification for something existing or happening;
He had no cause to complain
They had good reason to rejoice
Reason
A fact that logically justifies some premise or conclusion;
There is reason to believe he is lying
Reason
Decide by reasoning; draw or come to a conclusion;
We reasoned that it was cheaper to rent than to buy a house
Reason
Present reasons and arguments
Reason
Think logically;
The children must learn to reason
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