Education and Human Sciences, College of
Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications
Accessibility Remediation
If you are unable to use this item in its current form due to accessibility barriers, you may request remediation through our remediation request form.
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
2018
Citation
Published in Human Development 61 (2018), pp 60–64.
DOI: 10.1159/000484448
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.
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, School Psychology Commons
Comments
Copyright © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel. Used by permission.