My presentation on Mercier and Sperber’s Argumentative Theory 11 Jul 201222 Jun 2018 During my recent trip to Berkeley, I was asked to give a discussion starter about Mercier and Sperber’s recent Behavioral and Brain Sciences article on the function reasoning has been given by evolution. They broadly argue that reasoning is not an internal process and evolved with its “main function” as convincing others of what we already believe. As this was a discussion starter (and the discussion went on for some time), it was not intended to be a full critique. Here are the slides: A term like “main function” is a red rag to a philosopher. However, let me also say that I think it very likely there is no clear distinction between intuitive reasoning and public reasoning to be had – they shade into each other. Our preconscious reasoning skills are probably mutually influenced by our public expressions of it. As E. M. Forster said once, how do I know what I think until I see what I say? Biology Cognition Epistemology Evolution Philosophy
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Your slides captured the main points that concerned me. Although I think that our psychology includes our evolutionary past, it seems all too easy to jump to ‘just so’ stories. Good Evolutionary Psychology is much more demanding than some people would make out. I’ll be thinking about this for a while, but one of the predictions struck a false note with me: Prediction #5. When reasoning is used to make decisions, it will do what it is supposed to do, namely, find arguments. As a result, instead of always pointing towards a better choice, reasoning will usually lead us to a decision that, is easy to justify. This still seems to assume that reasoning is (mainly) about decision making. I think there is a stronger argument that embodied/unconscious choices are made and then justification for those choices abduced and/or confabulated by ‘reasoning’. My hypothesis is that ‘reasoning’ is primarily a PR exercise to sell the worthiness of our (often unconsciously) chosen behaviours to our close companions and ourselves. Communication is manipulation of brain states at a distance after all. The salesman doesn’t argue with the client, he persuades them. A subtle difference perhaps, but one which de-emphasises further the tacitly assumed link between reasoning and logic. Now you can revisit the evolutionary benefits. Is there a benefit in presenting yourself most favourably to people in your social group? I expect so, particularly for social animals. Logic and cerebral reasoning could be just a spandrel, which (with a nod to Mercier and Sperber) could explain a great deal of our behaviour. Just got to prove it…
Reasoning is opposed, in my view, to rhetoric, and it is the latter that serves to convince us no matter the merits of the case. If you read Plato’s The Sophist for instance, you soon get the idea that reasoning fights against mere conviction, often in vain. The question of what functions some cognitive capacity may serve is wholly contextual and probably multiple – there are rarely any main functions in biology. Reasoning evolved for many reasons, evolutionarily. One of the main reasons is to anticipate and manipulate the states of other minds, yes, but consider how reasoning is used by our nearest relatives. Consider how ecological rationality is used by species of many kinds. Cognitive capacities track ecological states in ways that make the truth of the doxastic stances relevant. If M&S were correct, there would not need to be such tracking. The fact that phylogenetically and convergently reasoning is used in most species that have it to track the world indicates that reasoning is about truth tracking, and hence truth preservation from reasons to conclusions. If you simply take a singular case – human cognitive reasoning – and back infer from know facts, then it seems very plausible that reason evolved to serve this or that main function. However, if you look at the role of reasoning, overt and covert, in many different species it seems a whole lot less plausible indeed.