unreason

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)Lack of reason or rationality; unreasonableness; irrationality.

   “c. 1566, John Knox, The Historie of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland, Book I, London: 1644, Another day the same Frier made another Sermon of the Abbot of Unreason, unto whom, and whose Laws, he compareth Prelats of that age; for they were subject to no Laws, no more than was the Abbot of Unreason.”

   “[…] it was long ere these scandalous and immoral sports could be abrogated;—the rude multitude continued attached to their favourite pastimes, and, both in England and Scotland, the mitre of the Catholic—the rochet of the reformed bishop—and the cloak and band of the Calvinistic divine—were, in turn, compelled to give place to those jocular personages, the Pope of Fools, the Boy-Bishop, and the Abbot of Unreason.”

   “What is called the great popular heart was awakened, that indefinable something which may be, according to circumstances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason.”

   “1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, “Shiraz, 18 February,” Of all the foreigners I have met in this country, diplomats, business men, and archaeologists of many nationalities and varying terms of residence, Christopher is the only one who likes its inhabitants, sympathizes with their nationalist growing-pains, and consistently upholds their virtues, sometimes to the point of unreason.”

   “Traditionally, black American dance students have been consistently steered away from classical ballet and toward the supposedly more “suitable” fields of modern, ethnic or Broadway-chorus dancing. The Harlem Dance Theater performances showed beyond doubt that the practice was based not on rhyme but on prejudiced unreason.”

2. (uncountable, usually)Nonsense; folly; absurdity.

verb

1. (rare, transitive)To prove to be unreasonable; disprove by argument.

   “The reason of the unreasonable usage my reason has met with, so unreasons my reason, that I have reason to complain of your beauty :" and how did he enjoy the following flower of composition ! "”

   “The elenchus enables him to overturn the formerly secure reasoning of his interlocutors about the subjects they discourse on so confidently—until the Socratic elenchus gradually unreasons them (see especially Meno, 80A—B).”

   “Being a father can “unreason” your worldview, or at least make it very flexible, and that can create all sorts of fun and insights.”

2. (rare)To apply false logic or think without logic.

   “After some trouble I have got the Programme, and now send it on to you ; I beg you to transcribe the first ten pages, in which he reasons, or rather unreasons, about homeopathy, and then send the Programme back to me, as I do not know how to procure another copy.”

   “In other, happier times, the mind could unreason freely, as if it belonged to no age, emancipated as it was...”

   “Just as Heidegger's reflections on the imagination led him to think "The nothing nothings," so Foucault's reflections on madness led him, in effect, to think "Unreason unreasons."”

3. (rare)To make unreasonable; to deprive of reason.

   “Unbelief unreasons a man: so the Apostle joyns them, when he prays to be delivered from unreasonable men; for all men have not faith.”

   “My pathetic collapse provoked them. My unreasonableness unreasoned them.”