The Science of Reason

The Science of Reason
Author: Ken Manktelow
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2010-10-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1136939091

This volume is a state-of-the-art survey of the psychology of reasoning, based around, and in tribute to, one of the field’s most eminent figures: Jonathan St B.T. Evans. In this collection of cutting edge research, Evans’ collaborators and colleagues review a wide range of important and developing areas of inquiry. These include biases in thinking, probabilistic and causal reasoning, people’s use of ‘if’ sentences in arguments, the dual-process theory of thought, and the nature of human rationality. These foundational issues are examined from various angles and finally integrated in a concluding panoramic chapter written by Evans himself. The eighteen chapters, all written by leading international researchers, combine state-of the-art research with investigation into the most fundamental questions surrounding human mental life, such as: What is the architecture of the human mind? Are humans rational, and what is the nature of this rationality? How do we think hypothetically? The Science of Reason offers a unique combination of breadth, depth and integrative vision, making it an indispensable resource for researchers and students of human reason.

International Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning

International Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning
Author: Linden J. Ball
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 646
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 131753476X

The Routledge International Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is an authoritative reference work providing a balanced overview of current scholarship spanning the full breadth of the rapidly developing and expanding field of thinking and reasoning. It contains 35 chapters written by leading international researchers, covering foundational issues as well as state-of-the-art developments in thinking and reasoning research. Topics covered range across all sub-areas of thinking and reasoning, including deduction, induction, abduction, judgment, decision making, argumentation, problem solving, expertise, creativity and rationality. The contributors engage with cutting-edge debates such as the status of dual-process theories of thinking, the role of unconscious, intuitive, emotional and metacognitive processes in thinking, and the importance of probabilistic conceptualisations of thinking and reasoning. Authors also examine the importance of neuroscientific findings in informing theoretical developments, and explore the situated nature of thinking and reasoning across a range of real-world contexts such as mathematics, medicine and science. The Handbook provides a clear sense of the way in which contemporary ideas are challenging traditional viewpoints as "new paradigm of the psychology of reasoning" emerges. This paradigm-shifting research is paving the way toward a richer and more inclusive understanding of thinking and reasoning, where important new questions drive a forward-looking research agenda. It is essential reading for both established researchers in the field of thinking and reasoning as well as advanced students wishing to learn more about both the historical foundations and latest developments in this rapidly growing field.

Everyday Abstract Conditional Reasoning

Everyday Abstract Conditional Reasoning
Author: András Veszelka
Publisher: Pellea Humán Kutató és Fejlesztő Bt.
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2014-07-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9630894637

The interpretation of the ‘if P then Q’ conditional statement is a central element in most logical systems. It largely shapes how these logical systems function. It is well known that, although attempts have been made, logical systems are principally unable to encapsulate how people reason in everyday life. This is mainly due to the discrepancies between the logical abstractions of the conditional statement and its everyday interpretation. Among other things, this makes it difficult to design artificial intelligence based on the abstract rules of logic. However, the ancient logicians who first defined the traditional interpretation of the conditional erroneously took into account more propositions than were actually being denoted. They characterised the ‘if P (or R) then Q’ relationship in place of the ‘if P then Q’ relationship. In relation to this, they also committed the error of leaving the context undenoted, which led to an unnatural interpretation of logical truth and logical necessity. This mistaken interpretation is still predominant today and can also be found in several mathematical logics, such as in propositional logic, even though mathematical logics were allegedly created independently of the ancient Greco-Roman logic. Fixing these problems reveals that the correct interpretation of the conditional statement is the equivalence/biconditional. This equivalent interpretation is interpreted by logicians as one of the most common everyday fallacies. Yet looking back on how the conditional statement was actually abstracted in the antiquity, it is evident that people were right and logicians were mistaken. Although the almost 50-year-old experimental psychological literature on the conditional did not confirm this common everyday tendency towards the biconditional interpretation, these findings are merely the result of unsystematic research. Running some of the long missing experiments leads the main experimental tasks to reveal overall the basic biconditional inferences. The approach presented in this book also resolves such dilemmas as the Wason’s abstract selection task, the paradox of the conditional statement and the Raven paradox. It is also shown here that the probabilistic interpretation of the conditional statement is not in conflict with this basic equivalent/biconditional interpretation. The approach is described in this book as the simplest possible non-monotonic logic, and pragmatic inferences, context effects, counterfactuals, possible world semantics and psychologism are also discussed. Since the conditional statement is equivalent to the universal affirmative statement in syllogisms, it is plausible to observe that fixing this same error in syllogisms also makes them compatible with people's actual inferences. Even the normally ambiguous Euler circles become an excellent tool to depict how this updated logic functions. Finally, with this new approach, the root of learning processes is inherently embedded into the logical abstraction of the conditional/universal affirmative statement, and hence, into logic in general. Therefore, this simple logic, presented in a non-technical way, has the potential to bring both human reasoning and learning under the umbrella of the same abstract system. This might be beneficial both for formalising psychology and for creating artificial intelligence.

The Nature of Reasoning

The Nature of Reasoning
Author: Jacqueline P. Leighton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2004
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780521009287

We are bombarded with information - press releases, television news, Internet websites, and office memos, just to name a few - on a daily basis. However, the important conclusions that may or need to be inferred from such information are typically not provided. We must draw the conclusions by ourselves. How do we draw these conclusions? This book addresses how we reason to reach sensible conclusions. The purpose of this book is to organize in one volume what is known about reasoning, such as its structural prerequisites, its mechanisms, its susceptibility to pragmatic influences, its pitfalls, and the bases for its development. Given that reasoning underlies so many of our intellectual activities - when we learn, criticize, analyze, judge, infer, evaluate, optimize, apply, discover, imagine, devise, and create - we stand to gain a great deal if we can learn to define, operate, apply, and nurture our reasoning.

The Handbook of Rationality

The Handbook of Rationality
Author: Markus Knauff
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 879
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 026236185X

The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers the first integrated overview of the state of the art in the psychology and philosophy of rationality. Written by leading experts from both disciplines, The Handbook of Rationality covers the main normative and descriptive theories of rationality—how people ought to think, how they actually think, and why we often deviate from what we can call rational. It also offers insights from other fields such as artificial intelligence, economics, the social sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. The Handbook proposes a novel classification system for researchers in human rationality, and it creates new connections between rationality research in philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. Following the basic distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, the book first considers the theoretical side, including normative and descriptive theories of logical, probabilistic, causal, and defeasible reasoning. It then turns to the practical side, discussing topics such as decision making, bounded rationality, game theory, deontic and legal reasoning, and the relation between rationality and morality. Finally, it covers topics that arise in both theoretical and practical rationality, including visual and spatial thinking, scientific rationality, how children learn to reason rationally, and the connection between intelligence and rationality.

A Conceptual History of Psychology

A Conceptual History of Psychology
Author: John D. Greenwood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 573
Release: 2015-08-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1316368467

In the new edition of this original and penetrating book, John D. Greenwood provides an in-depth analysis of the subtle conceptual continuities and discontinuities that inform the history of psychology from the speculations of the Ancient Greeks to contemporary cognitive psychology. He also demonstrates the fashion in which different conceptions of human and animal psychology and behavior have become associated and disassociated over the centuries. Moving easily among psychology, history of science, physiology, and philosophy, Greenwood provides a critically challenging account of the development of psychology as a science. He relates the remarkable stories of the intellectual pioneers of modern psychology, while exploring the social and political milieu in which they operated, and dispels many of the myths of the history of psychology, based upon the best historical scholarship of recent decades. This is an impressive overview that will appeal to scholars and graduate students of the history of psychology.

Logical Abilities in Children: Volume 3

Logical Abilities in Children: Volume 3
Author: Daniel N. Osherson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2017-08-24
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351616056

Originally published in 1975, this volume (3 of 4) presents an expanded model of certain deductive abilities in children and adults. A partial explanation of the growth of these abilities was suggested in Volume 2 of this series, and it is amplified here, both with regard to propositional logic and the logic of class inclusion. A new methodology is employed, the issue of the effect of content in deductive reasoning is covered, and developmental questions are reformulated. Although only data from experiments with adolescents are presented here, the volume sets the stage for potentially illustrating developmental comparisons, a topic pursued in Volume 4 of this novel and inventive series.

Reasoning, Rationality and Dual Processes

Reasoning, Rationality and Dual Processes
Author: Jonathan St B.T. Evans
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134610289

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major theoretical and practical contributions. Jonathan St B T Evans is amongst the foremost cognitive psychologists of his generation, having been influential in spearheading developments in the psychological study of reasoning from its very beginnings in the 1970s up to the present day. This volume of self-selected papers recognises Professor Evan’s major contribution to the psychological study of thinking and reasoning by bringing together his most influential and important works. Early selections in the book focus upon experimental studies of reasoning - matching bias in the Wason selection task, belief bias in syllogistic reasoning, and also seminal work on the understanding of conditional statements. The later selections include Evans’ work on more general forms of dual process and dual system theory, and his recent account of two minds in one brain. The volume also contains chapters which highlight Evans’ contribution to the topic of human rationality, and also his influence on the development of the "new paradigm" in the psychology of reasoning. The key developments in the psychology of reasoning are paralleled by those in Evans’s own intellectual history, and the book will therefore make essential reading for all researchers in the psychology of reasoning, and a wider audience of graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with an interest in reasoning and/or dual process theory.