"Reasoning, Logic, and Development: Essay Review of The Enigma of Reaso" by David Moshman

Department of Educational Psychology

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2018

Citation

Published in Human Development 61 (2018), pp 60–64.

DOI: 10.1159/000484448

Comments

Copyright © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel. Used by permission.

Abstract

In 2011, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber published an influential article [Mer­cier & Sperber, 2011] arguing that human reasoning evolved for the purpose of argu­mentation and serves that purpose well. Additional publications followed and now, in The Enigma of Reason, Mercier and Sperber [2017] flesh out their theory. Indi­vidual reasoning is often fallacious, in their view, because it applies reasoning beyond the scope of its evolutionary purpose. Logic, rather than a basis for reasoning, is a formalized system developed by logicians that has little connection to actual human reasoning.

This is a rich and readable book that presents many intriguing studies from the literature of human reasoning and addresses diverse philosophical and theoretical conceptualizations of human rationality. In the end, however, I believe it has two se­rious, and closely related, flaws: it ignores development and, as a result, misunder­stands the nature of logic and its role in reasoning.

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