The RSA has formed a small team to develop a new idea, tentatively called the Reason Project.

Reason and Reasoning: Critical Thinking for Adults

Most of us take for granted the world around us.  We make daily decisions that shape our attitudes and guide our behaviour, mostly routine but sometimes requiring conscious effort.  Occasionally there are tricky situations where there seems to be no clear choice about which way to jump.  In those instances, most of us tend to fall back on the familiar and the known to make our way forward.

The Reason Project will be about thinking about this sort of everyday thinking … and providing people with tools for doing it better.  It will have a number of elements.

• There will be a website with some simple background information about the history of Reason and Reasoning and what we now know about the way we humans use our brains to reason.
• The website will also bring together practical tools to sharpen up critical thinking skills and to evaluate the soundness of others’ arguments.  We’ll feature informative talks and fun skits, MOOCs and popular writing.  We hope this will be of particular use to journalists and bloggers.
• In parallel, we’ll also establish a “Reason Institute” – a sort of think-tank of Fellows who either work in the field of reasoning or who are recognised as clear thinking subject matter experts.

Interested? Drop us a line if you want to get involved.