Concept in Definition ABC

Sagacity is an intellectual quality. It consists of starting a reflection in order to solve an issue or clarify a problem. The person who has this ability is someone shrewd. In our language sagacious it is synonymous with sharp, thoughtful, insightful, intelligent or cunning.
The person who is characterized by his sagacity is normally observant and analytical and is able to relate various aspects with some relationship between them.

The kind of reasoning that manifests itself in the sagacious person usually combines a series of elements (data and evidence) in order to achieve a conclusion definitive. In this sense, it could be said that the sagacious individual is capable of composing a messy puzzle into something defined and finished.

On the basis of inductive or deductive methods

Sagacity is a reasoning process, which must be based on some method. Basically it is possible to establish two methods: inductive or deductive. The first is based on the objective accumulation of information, its

classification and in its final phase a theory is proposed that explains the regularity of what is analyzed (in other words, induction starts from the particular to reach general conclusions).

The Deductive method part of a hypothesis that tries to explain some facts and later a series of consequences are deduced that are finally contrasted with the data or concrete observations. It would not be possible to consider sagacity without some rational method linked to it. However, it is also necessary that the rational component is accompanied by a certain intuition, as well as a dose of experience.

A classic example of sagacity

In the history of the literature and more specifically in the gender of the novel there is a type of character whose main characteristic is sagacity, the detective, who is the central protagonist of a subgenre, detective fiction (it is considered a subgenre of the novel black). There are some famous examples of great investigators in fiction (Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Auguste Dupin or Philip Marlowe). These characters are usually faced with a challenge: solving a mysterious crime.

The approach to the plot is based on a crime that is presented as an enigma in the form of a puzzle. The detective's sagacity makes the mystery slowly unravel. To achieve this, he connects the dots, observes insignificant details and, all this, according to a methodology deductive or inductive and some aspects not strictly rational (the researcher has a spatial sense of smell and knows how to interpret some signals that usually go unnoticed).

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