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Argumentation: Its adaptiveness and efficacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2011

Hugo Mercier  and
Dan Sperber
Hugo Mercier
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. hmercier@sas.upenn.edu http://sites.google.com/site/hugomercier/
Dan Sperber
Affiliation:
Jean Nicod Institute (EHESS-ENS-CNRS), 75005 Paris, France; and Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. dan@sperber.fr http://www.dan.sperber.fr
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Abstract

Having defended the usefulness of our definition of reasoning, we stress that reasoning is not only for convincing but also for evaluating arguments, and that as such it has an epistemic function. We defend the evidence supporting the theory against several challenges: People are good informal arguers, they reason better in groups, and they have a confirmation bias. Finally, we consider possible extensions, first in terms of process-level theories of reasoning, and second in the effects of reasoning outside the lab.

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Type
Authors' Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 94 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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