Surely it is possible to remember a sequence of events without visualizing them? Actually, for me, it's not a choice. The sequence of events since I last had it occurs to me without pictures. — Ludwig V

I don't know. it never occurred to me to try. I just automatically start visualizing the events. I don't know how I would do it. Lol.
"Ok, after I paid, I put the card back in my wallet. When it was in my wallet, I put it in my back pocket. I grabbed my bags, a couple in each hand, and walked to the car. I opened the car door, put the bags in, took my wallet out and threw it on the passenger seat. I don't remember taking it off the seat when I took the groceries in. AH!! Maybe it fell between the seat and the door!"

How would I know I did those things if I wasn't picturing the sequence of events in my head??

Doesn’t ground mean some sort of cognitive capacity? Learning to use this capacity, and having this capacity in the first place are two different things. There seems to be a debate as to how modular our cognitive systems are. Is the brain a general processor or does it have domains? If it has domains does “rational thinking” count as a domain- a specialized brain/cognitive capacity? A dog solving a puzzle and a human inferencing- is that the same capacity/region or two similar but different capacities? — schopenhauer1

I don't know the answers to most of those questions. Yes, I do think that being able to justify one's beliefs (and act on them) is an important cognitive capacity.

I'm thinking maybe the capacity to think rationally is hardwired in. But we must learn how it works. — Patterner

In the end, it will not be for philosophers to decide what is "hard-wired in". But I'm inclined to think that what we call rationality is mostly learned by shaping the basic reflexes. For example, (as I understand it), babies are born with a reflex to seek mild and drink, to smile back at a smiling face. Both these activities seem to give them pleasure and the lack of them - or at least the lack of the former - gives them "pain". So a few reflexes, pleasure and pain, plus the ability to notice and remember what is associated with what (behaviourists were not complete idiots) are probably all that is needed. The basis of rationality is the discovery of what brings success and what brings failure. Then there's all the learning from those around us, including what counts as success/failure.

How would I know I did those things if I wasn't picturing the sequence of events in my head?? — Patterner

Well, you may have written that list by describing your visualations. But if you can remember what was on the list (in words), then you can also write it without. But perhaps it's just how one's memory works.

I don't know. it never occurred to me to try. I just automatically start visualizing the events. I don't know how I would do it. Lol. — Patterner

Most of our memories just come when we want them. "Trying to remember" is possible, though I don't find that I know exactly what I do when I'm trying or even succeeding. It just happens - or not.
What is really weird is that I've noticed that sometimes I know that I've remembered before I've remembered the details.

The basis of rationality is the discovery of what brings success and what brings failure. Then there's all the learning from those around us, including what counts as success/failure. — Ludwig V

But therr are irrational proper. I wonder how many different reasons there are for that. The baby's brain grows/is wired as those things are happening, because that's what the DNA designed it to do. What if it gets no interaction? Does the brain wire badly? Does a time come when it is too late for things to work out well, no matter what happens? And what about irrational people who got the interaction that works best in the vast majority of cases?

What is really weird is that I've noticed that sometimes I know that I've remembered before I've remembered the details. — Ludwig V

Sure. I don't have to sing Hey Jude to know I know all the words, or recite my children's birth dates and Social Security numbers to knows I know them.

What if you're all alone on a desert island, building a shelter, foraging for food, making tool and working on an effective SOS signal, and there is nobody to demand an explanation of why you're doing these things? Are you irrational then?

Sorry I wasn't clear. I think that's implicit in what I said - indeed it is the justification for what I said. I should have said so upfront. — Ludwig V

Not disagreeing; amplifying. People can be seen to act rationally even when they don't explain their motivations and sources of information. When you see someone doing the very same thing you would do in their circumstances, it's reasonable to assume they're thinking the same way. Sometimes we may be wrong, and alternate explanations might be given (Like Dortmunder telling the judge when he was caught with a television in his arms that he wasn't stealing it; he had interrupted the real thief and was putting it back.) but it would still be reasonable to start with the most obvious explanation until we know more facts.

Most of our memories just come when we want them. "Trying to remember" is possible, though I don't find that I know exactly what I do when I'm trying or even succeeding. It just happens - or not. — Ludwig V

I wish I could remember the tv show I saw one time, lo these many years ago. Sadly, decades. One charter told another that she could remember much greater detail if she tried to walk through it slowly, step by step. That's why I do it the way I do. Only a few days, before any memories fade away. I start with a detail that I remember well. Then I move forward. As slowly as I can. When I do that, I remember little things you wouldn't normally. Glance over because someone coughed, and notice their blue shirt. You never know what you'll dredge up.

Ludwig said,
"The basis of rationality is the discovery of what brings success and what brings failure."
If you try to build your hut's support beams out of jellyfish, Shaka, when the walls fell. If you think rationally, you'll try something else. If you are a poor swimer, it would be irrational to try to swim home. You don't have to attempt to explain anything to anybody.

One charter told another that she could remember much greater detail if she tried to walk through it slowly, step by step. — Patterner

I recently saw a documentary about Australian natives constructing mental maps in that way. The person who doesn't know the way is escorted along the route and told at certain intervals to make note of some feature of the landscape. Then they would walk the route in their head, recalling the sequence of features.
When I lose things - more often every week, it seems - I do the same thing: try to retrace my steps internally, and then see if I can follow the same sequence of things I noticed when i was carrying the flashlight or eyeglasses (the two most AWOL-prone objects in my household).

Do you mean something like?
How did you know the train was coming at 12:00?
Because the company's web-site said so.
Why do you believe what the company's web-site says?
Because it is almost always accurate.
Why do you believe it is almost always accurate?
Because I and many others have used it in the past.
Why do you believe that its accuracy in the past means that it is accurate now?.
Because I am rational.
Why are you rational?
Because it is the best way to get to the truth.
Why is it the best way to get to the truth?
?
All justifications end in "groundless grounds". — Ludwig V

It sounds like you are just checking and confirming with yourself what you see on the web site.
You may think that your blind faith of the accuracy of the web site is based on the past record of the accuracy on the information of the website, therefore you were doing an inductive reasoning. But it is still a blind faith on the info. because you have not made any scientific observations on the past events. Plus there is nothing scientific about the accuracy of the train time shown on the website, why it has to be the info, and not otherwise. There is nothing to think any further, why the info has the contents it has apart from it is just there for you to see.

Plus there are many possible chance the web site info might not be correct. Therefore it is not a rational thinking. It is just daily habitual acts of reading and confirming the info. There is nothing rational thinking involved in that process.

How is danger a linguistically generated concept? — Vera Mont

I didn't say it is I said 'danger' is a linguistically generated concept. Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'. That said, how could we know either way? So we are merely working with what seems most plausible, and plausibility is in the final analysis in the eye of the beholder.



I don't find much to disagree with here so I'll just respond to those bits where I do diverge.

So generalizations and statements about abstract objects have different logical forms and hence different meanings. — Ludwig V

If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. There are countless instantiations of 'two' just as there are of 'tree' or 'animal'.

They do not refer to specific individual things, so they do not name anything. — Ludwig V

Here I disagree again. 'Tree' does not name a particular thing but a particular category or class of things. 'Two' does not name a particular pair of things but names a particular quantity of things.

I don't see that what is going on in the llamas' heads is particularly important. It is this behaviour pattern in the context of their overall lives that we are trying to explain. — Ludwig V

Insofar as we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language I agree. On the other hand we via reflection on our own experience can notice the affects (such as fear for example) that our emotive words refer to and since there seems to be a commonality of body language across at least some species we can speculate about other animals experience.

Yes. I was just expanding the scope of what counts as being rational to include more than just the ability to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information.
— creativesoul
Yes, I would agree there's more to it than that. It is not rational to drop many different pairs of different objects from many different heights, and come out of it thinking heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. That would be an inability to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information.. — Patterner

Whether or not it is rational to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones depends upon the individual's preexisting worldview.

Feathers. Bowling balls. Snowflakes. Leaves. Limbs. Trees. We can watch many different things fall through space. Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Watching heavier objects traverse the same distance in less time than lighter ones is something that can be fully experienced by any creature capable of judging the travel speed(fall rate) variety of external objects relative to each other, a fixed object, from the creature's own vantage point.

One can only formulate beliefs about beliefs (recursion or meta-beliefs) in language. Though I would distinguish between formulating beliefs about one's own beliefs and formulating beliefs about other people's beliefs. The former seems to me problematic, because the recursion seems infinite and, in the end, empty, whereas the latter seems an everyday occurrence. (There's research in psychology about how and when small children become aware of other people's state of mind - empathy).
— Ludwig V

There's a big difference between formulating beliefs about beliefs and thinking about beliefs. Small children do not formulate beliefs about beliefs. — creativesoul

I agree with both sentences. — Ludwig V

Formulating beliefs requires language. Acquiring them does not always. I do not find the invocation and use of the term "formulating" helpful. "Forming" snuggles the world. Formulating and articulating one's own thought and belief presupposes language use. Prior to formulation and articulation comes what both of those concepts presuppose. Something to formulate. Something to articulate.

Pre-existing meaningful experience consisting of thought and belief about the world and oneself.

Human thought, belief, and experience existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it.



One can believe that touching fire hurts long before ever being able to articulate that. We're looking for some basic set of common denominators/elements shared between all cases of language less thought and/or belief. That basic foundation must also be shared by ourselves. Tacit reasoning spans the bridge between language less thought and belief and linguistically informed and/or articulated thought and belief. That's an interesting avenue.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another. Articulate reasoning consists - in very large part - of language use. Language less creatures have none. Language less creatures cannot form, have, and/or hold articulate reasoning. Yet they can learn that touching fire hurts by recognizing/attributing causality. They can learn to use a stick to eat ants/termites. They can watch and learn how lifting the handle opens the gate. They can learn to greet by partaking in such practices(by doing it). One greeting another often and regularly enough amounts to ritual. Clearly, there is no language necessary for basic notions of rational thinking. Or... learning how to open a gate by observation and practice does not count as rational thinking.

That sort of understanding becomes tacit to us. We do not express our wanting to use the gate hardly ever after learning how to use it. I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.

We are in dire need of a criterion.

Yes, rationality includes more than differentiating between accurate/inaccurate information. I was making that case.
— creativesoul
Yes. But it does include differentiating between accurate and inaccurate information, doesn't it? — Ludwig V

I'm not fond of "information". It smuggles meaning.

There are all sorts of language less creatures(creatures devoid of naming and description practices) capable of differentiating between distal objects. Again, I'm not fond of invoking some notion of "information". That's adding complexity. I'd rather excise the unnecessary and unhelpful approaches to the topic.

Not all differentiation between accurate and inaccurate information requires articulated reason/thought.

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language... — Janus

That's not true. We can know quite a bit about how biological minds work. It dovetails with knowledge about how all things become meaningful. How statements become true/false. How we can preserve truth with timestamping, etc. I wouldn't talk about thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience in terms of "what goes on in the head". It works from emaciated notions of all three.

Some people say that they think in images. That would be independent of language.
— Ludwig V
I very much wish I knew one of these people, so I could talk with them and ask many questions. — Patterner

Ask away!

:wink:

That's not true. We can know quite a bit about how biological minds work. It dovetails with knowledge about how all things become meaningful. How statements become true/false. How we can preserve truth with timestamping, etc. I wouldn't talk about thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience in terms of "what goes on in the head". It works from emaciated notions of all three. — creativesoul

You might know what goes on in your head via introspection. You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully and presuming I know myself. We can get a fairly good idea about what animals feel from their behavior and body language, or at least so it seems. We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own.

You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully — Janus

That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself is affecting you.

It's a matter of precision you're after, I suspect. In that case, I still disagree. I've been involved in conversation with someone embroiled in unsettled emotional turmoil who really believed that they were not.

That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself is affecting you. — creativesoul

That is nothing more than a generalized notion of how minds work. It gives you no specific knowledge of what is going on in the minds of other humans, much less animals.

That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself is affecting you.
— creativesoul

That is nothing more than a generalized notion of how minds work. It gives you no specific knowledge of what is going on in the minds of other humans, much less animals. — Janus

As if a universal criterion is a bad thing? We can know that a cat believes that there is a mouse under the cabinet. We can know that the cat's belief is meaningful to the cat. We can know that all meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having it. There are all sorts of things we can know about animal minds Janus.

We can know that our own meaningful experience began long before we talked about it.

In order to know one is projecting human thought onto creatures incapable of forming, having, and/or holding such thought, one must know what the differences are between them such that they can know that the one is incapable of forming, having, and/or holding the others' thought, belief, meaningful experience.

I haven't disagreed that we can make generalized conjectures about how human and animal minds work.

The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.

You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.

Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'. — Janus

Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted?

So we are merely working with what seems most plausible, and plausibility is in the final analysis in the eye of the beholder. — Janus

As in all learning, yes, until a more complete answer, one that fits more criteria, becomes available.

Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted? — Vera Mont

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about.

What if it gets no interaction? Does the brain wire badly? Does a time come when it is too late for things to work out well, no matter what happens? And what about irrational people who got the interaction that works best in the vast majority of cases? — Patterner

Your first three questions are empirical, not philosophical. My understanding is that there is empirical evidence that there are "windows" when the brain learns certain things particularly fast. If that window is missed for any reason, it will be difficult to impossible to learn it later. Examples are ducklings learning who is mum. They will fasten on the first large moving object they see and follow it faithfully until they are grown. Konrad Lorenz famously got one brood to imprint on him. That can't be changed, I believe. Another example is language learning in humans. If a baby doesn't get sufficient human interaction between specific ages, it till be very difficult to learn language later in life.

As to irrational people, We are all a mixture. More than that, rationality can't get going without some pre-rational starting-point. In any case, it seems to me that it is not really appropriate to call a new-born baby rational or irrational. Rationality develops quite slowly and I wouldn't say there was a threshold point between the two. Sadly, it also declines ln old age, but also slowly.

Not disagreeing; amplifying. People can be seen to act rationally even when they don't explain their motivations and sources of information. When you see someone doing the very same thing you would do in their circumstances, it's reasonable to assume they're thinking the same way. — Vera Mont

OK. You are indeed perfectly right. Dortmunder :lol:

Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'.
— Janus
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted? — Vera Mont

"Our" concept of danger includes appropriate reaction to it. When animals exhibit similar behaviour in similar circumstances there's no good reason to withhold applying the concept to it. Apart from anything else, it enables us to understand what's going on - and that is the point of the exercise. But it is fair enough to say that any application need to be considered in the context of the overall patterns of behaviour that they exhibit. One case doesn't give us much insight, but each case contributes to our insight.

Plus there is nothing scientific about the accuracy of the train time shown on the website, why it has to be the info, and not otherwise. — Corvus

I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge.
I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning.
Shorlty after the signal changes, I hear a loudspeaker announcement that the train will arrive shortly. The same thing has happened every time in the past. I therefore believe the announcement. I think that's also inductive reasoning.
Yes, I do have blind faith in inductive reasoning, as Hume noticed. One has to start somewhere. One also has to risk being wrong in order to be right.

Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. — creativesoul

Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another. — creativesoul

Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.

I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it. — creativesoul

Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it.

since there seems to be a commonality of body language across at least some species we can speculate about other animals experience. — Janus

I do agree that there is a commonality of body language, and you are right to say "across at least some species". But describing our experience is no different from a gesture, a grimace or a smile or a wagging tail in terms of knowing what is going on in someone's head. If we can know what human beings are experience or thinking from their non-linguistic behaviour, why is it speculation to interpret that (ex hypothesi) animal behaviour in the same way. I can see no rational difference.

If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. — Janus

For me, a generalization is a statement or proposition of the logical form I described. So you are missing the point. I am indeed "treating" abstract objects as particulars. So are you when you describe them as abstract objects.

We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own. — Janus

That's why I think it is a mistake to think that explaining animal actions has much to do with divining the inner workings of their minds. Mind you, I don't think that it is a determining factor in explaining human actions, either. It's more like interpreting a picture. Yes, sometimes we set out to divine the intentions of the artist, but not always. Sometimes it is just a question of seeing what is in the picture. (Puzzle pictures).

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. — Janus

Sorry, I don't understand what that difference is.

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about. — Janus

You seem to consider symbols important. I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it.

I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning. — Ludwig V

Yes, it is an inductive reasoning. You have your knowledge based on your past observations on the events.

Yes, I do have blind faith in inductive reasoning, as Hume noticed. One has to start somewhere. One also has to risk being wrong in order to be right. — Ludwig V

Hume said that inductive reasoning can be irrational. Therefore your reasoning on the train arrival time could be irrational.

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language... — Janus

This is mistaken in more than one way. It is false.

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways . Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. If one theory proves beyond a reasonable doubt that X is the case, and another theory depends upon the opposite, well...

I haven't disagreed that we can make generalized conjectures about how human and animal minds work. — Janus

Changing the subject is unhelpful.

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads... — Janus

That's false. It's also incomplete enough to be troublesome.

The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.

And yet, we are discussing what you claim we have no way of knowing about.

You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.

You are having a conversation about whether or not other animals can think rationally. How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?

Behavior alone is utterly inadequate. We are seeking knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it. Meaningful experience prior to language.

We can know that language less thought and belief cannot include any language that is meaningful to the creature under consideration. Language is not meaningful to a language less creature. If doing X requires using language, the language less creatures cannot do X.

Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.

Body language assessment suffers the issues of which you complain. Reading another's body language is to attribute meaning to the behavior.

Claiming to know how animals feel is unacceptable when accompanied by having no way of knowing what's in their mind.

We can know that a language less creature is incapable of metacognition. If doing Y requires metacognition, and creature 1 has no language, then we can know that creature 1 cannot do Y. If doing Y is required for achieving a goal, then creature 1 has no ability to achieve that goal.

Yada, yada, yada...

...our epistemic situation regarding other minds. — Janus

What's the situation such that it warrants such a lack of certainty?

I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge. — Ludwig V

If Newton had been observing the apples falling from the trees to the ground without the scientific discovery, then it would have been just described as daily perception of an ordinary bloke. But he discovered the scientific principle from the observation, which made into the history.

The same could apply to your case. If you had discovered some ground breaking new scientific principle such as a possibility of time travel or something like that, from your observation of the train arriving at 7:00 everyday to your station platform, then it would have been a case of inductive reasoning. However, only thing you have observed in that exercise was that train arrives at 7:00 every day to your platform, which is just a trivial part of daily life of an ordinary bloke. Would anyone class the case as a rational thinking based on the inductive reasoning? I doubt it.

Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public.

I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it. — Vera Mont

I would go further than that. Let's distinguish the word "danger" and the concept of danger. Creatures that don't speak human-style languages don't have access to the word. But the concept is wider than speech. It involves the possibility of harm to oneself (and others) and appropriate reactions (fight or flight) to that possibility. None of that requires any understanding of human-style languages. What's more, the behavioural reactions are more important in the concept that the ability to articulate what we would understand as a sentence.

Hume said that inductive reasoning can be irrational. Therefore your reasoning on the train arrival time could be irrational. — Corvus

Well, he didn't say exactly that. But the point that is usually made is that inductive reasoning can be wrong - which doesn't necessarily mean that it is irrational. Hume made two points in the light of his argument. The first was that we are going to go on using it even though it may be wrong and the second was that it was as much of a proof as you will ever get of how the world works, and even ends up (in the section on miracles) calling it a "proof, whole and entire".

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. — creativesoul

Quite so.

How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads? — creativesoul

More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault. There's an ambiguity between the sense of "what's going on in X's head" in which observation of behaviour is a normal and reliable way of discovery and the "experiential" or phenomenological sense of what's going on in X's head." In that sense, we have no access at all to what's going on in anyone's head, because the only person who has access to it is X. (As in Mary's room or bats.) I don't think discovering the rationality of animals or humans is particularly closely connected to latter. Nagel thinks (unless I'm mistaken) that it is not possible.

Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning. — creativesoul

Well, if it is dependent on shared meaning (as opposed to common language), then animals could know themselves.

Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public. — Corvus

The story of Newton's apple is a bit more complicated than the popular summary. But apart from that, it seems pretty clear to me that Newton would not have made any inductive inference from one case. If he did, it would not be rational.
So John Doe and his friends and relations are not rational - ever? You set a high bar.
There is another problem. When Newton wanders in from his apple tree for afternoon tea and a gossip, does he cease being rational because he's behaving in an everyday way?
Perhaps we are all sometimes rational and sometimes not.

Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.
— creativesoul
Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another.
— creativesoul
Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.
I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.
— creativesoul
Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it. — Ludwig V

I'm working on a reply to this and what followed. Shows a bit of promise from where I sit, so to speak. Thanks.

I'll look forward to your reply.