Are the meanings for 理 and 由 kind of the wrong way around?

WaniKani Bugs & Errors
1

The primary meaning for the Kanji 理 and 由 are both listed as “Reason”. But “Reason” technically has two definitions:

  1. The reason for something, i.e. the “cause”
  2. The power of comprehending, inferring or thinking in orderly and rational ways

The meaning section for 理 states “The king’s village is the reason he’s king. Without the village there would be no reason to have a king in the first place”, implying the first definition of “Reason”. The meaning section for 由 states “It is the Cross of Reason. Because it’s a cross with a mouth, it thinks that it is reason in all the chaos”, very much implying the second definition of “Reason”.

But based on the definition of those Kanji in for example Jitendex (理: reason, principle, logic, 由: reason, significance, cause) as well as the vocabularies these Kanji appear in (理: understanding, logic, theory, reasoning, 由: freedom, origin, lineage) I feel like it should be the other way around?

Stumbled upon this when I was trying to figure out what “Freedom” (自由) had to do with “Reason” as in “the power of reasoning”. But from what I gather the original meaning of 自由 is “originating from oneself”, as in decisions coming from your own will rather than an external force, which I think makes a whole lot more sense if the meaning of “由” were defined as “reason” as in “cause”.

2

Would not be the first time Koichi’s muddled up the difference between two similar English words. I remember we had to sit on him until he looked up the difference between “attain” and “obtain”.

Reckon it’s worth seeing what the @Mods think here.

3

I had the same gripe and ended up adding my own synonyms and notes to make them more closely resemble what each one represents. I just assumed this was a case of making whatever mnemonic works without minding the specific meaning but it does bother me too.

personally for 理 I remember that a good king rules with reason (reasoning or logic), I don’t have a mnemonic for 由 but I made it a synonym “cause”

4

Thanks for the tag - we’ll take a look!