The Enigma of Reason
Abstract
Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. If reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us. In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists...why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones....
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Searching for information supporting one's beliefs and ignoring contradictory data is epistemically disadvantageous when what one takes to be reality is and stays different from what one believes it to be.
“Confirmation bias is typically taken to work against an individual's truth tracking (Mercier and Sperber 2017: 215;Peters 2018: 15), and indeed searching for information supporting one's beliefs and ignoring contradictory data is epistemically disadvantageous when what one takes to be reality is and stays different from what one believes it to be.”
From What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias? (2022) · cites this paper as Mercier and Sperber 2017
Cites
Still being checked.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, L., Ismagilova, E., Aarts, G., Coombs, C., Crick, T., Duan, Y., Dwivedi, R., Edwards, J., Eirug, A., et al. (2021) · International Journal of Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.08.002 · Cited by 4,611 · see citing works
Thinking through other minds: A variational approach to cognition and culture
Veissière, S. P. L., Constant, A., Ramstead, M. J. D., Friston, K. J., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2020) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x19001213 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
Reassessing the conceptual–procedural distinction
Wilson, D. (2016) · Lingua · doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2015.12.005 · Cited by 250 · see citing works
Knowing Ourselves Together: The Cultural Origins of Metacognition
Heyes, C., Bang, D., Shea, N., Frith, C. D., & Fleming, S. M. (2020) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.02.007 · Cited by 232 · see citing works
The Argumentative Theory: Predictions and Empirical Evidence
Mercier, H. (2016) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.07.001 · Cited by 190 · see citing works
Self-citationWhat Is the Function of Confirmation Bias?
Peters, U. (2022) · Erkenntnis · doi:10.1007/s10670-020-00252-1 · Cited by 163 · see citing works
Applying the Theory of Affective Intelligence to Support for Authoritarian Policies and Parties
Marcus, G. E., Valentino, N. A., Vasilopoulos, P., & Foucault, M. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12571 · Cited by 163 · see citing works
Why does peer instruction benefit student learning?
Tullis, J. G., & Goldstone, R. L. (2020) · Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-020-00218-5 · Cited by 153 · see citing works
Osborne, J. F., Borko, H., Fishman, E. J., Zaccarelli, F. G., Berson, E., Busch, K. C., Reigh, E. V., & Tseng, A. S. (2019) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/0002831218812059 · Cited by 154 · see citing works
Knowledge From Vice: Deeply Social Epistemology
Levy, N. L., & Alfano, M. (2019) · Mind · doi:10.1093/mind/fzz017 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Clark, C. J., & Winegard, B. M. (2020) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2020.1721233 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
The responsibility of social media in times of societal and political manipulation
Reisach, U. (2020) · European Journal of Operational Research · doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2020.09.020 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Shared responsibility in collective decisions
Zein, M. E., Bahrami, B., & Hertwig, R. (2019) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0596-4 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
The smart intuitor: Cognitive capacity predicts intuitive rather than deliberate thinking
Raoelison, M., Thompson, V. A., & Neys, W. D. (2020) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104381 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Experimental Pragmatics: The making of a cognitive science
Noveck, I. A. (2018) · HAL · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Infants recruit logic to learn about the social world
Cesana‐Arlotti, N., Kovács, Á. M., & Téglás, E. (2020) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19734-5 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Towards Fine-Grained Reasoning for Fake News Detection
Jin, Y., Wang, X., Yang, R., Sun, Y., Wang, W. W., Liao, H., & Xie, X. (2022) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1609/aaai.v36i5.20517 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Westra, E., & Nagel, J. (2021) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104618 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Sealing the gateways for post-truthism: Reestablishing the epistemic authority of science
Kienhues, D., Jucks, R., & Bromme, R. (2020) · Educational Psychologist · doi:10.1080/00461520.2020.1784012 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Altay, S., Hacquin, A.-S., Chevallier, C., & Mercier, H. (2021) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied · doi:10.1037/xap0000400 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Self-citationPsychological barriers to evolutionary psychology: Ideological bias and coalitional adaptations.
Buss, D. M., & von Hippel, W. (2018) · Archives of Scientific Psychology · doi:10.1037/arc0000049 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Human Life Is Group Life: Deliberative Democracy for Realists
Chambers, S. (2018) · Critical Review · doi:10.1080/08913811.2018.1466852 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
A systems approach to cultural evolution
Buskell, A., Enquist, M., & Jansson, F. (2019) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0343-5 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision‐making
Djulbegović, B., & Elqayam, S. (2017) · Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice · doi:10.1111/jep.12788 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Rational decision making in medicine: Implications for overuse and underuse
Djulbegović, B., Elqayam, S., & Dale, W. (2017) · Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice · doi:10.1111/jep.12851 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Before Name-Calling: Dynamics and Triggers of Ad Hominem Fallacies in Web Argumentation
Habernal, I., Wachsmuth, H., Gurevych, I., & Stein, B. (2018) · Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (NAACL-HLT) · doi:10.18653/v1/n18-1036 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Sauer, H. (2018) · doi:10.1017/9781108529181 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
A theory of learning to infer.
Dasgupta, I., Schulz, E., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Gershman, S. J. (2020) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000178 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Biased belief in the Bayesian brain: A deeper look at the evidence
Tappin, B. M., & Gadsby, S. (2019) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2019.01.006 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Flis, I. (2019) · Theory & Psychology · doi:10.1177/0959354319835322 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
AI, Explainability and Public Reason: The Argument from the Limitations of the Human Mind
Maclure, J. (2021) · Minds and Machines · doi:10.1007/s11023-021-09570-x · Cited by 67 · see citing works
Natural-Born Arguers: Teaching How to Make the Best of Our Reasoning Abilities
Mercier, H., Boudry, M., Fabio Paglieri, A., & Trouche, E. (2016) · Educational Psychologist · doi:10.1080/00461520.2016.1207537 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Self-citationHierarchical Bayesian models of delusion
Williams, D. (2018) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2018.03.003 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
The Role of Trust in Argumentation
Novaes, C. D. (2020) · Informal Logic · doi:10.22329/il.v40i2.6328 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Evaluating Explanations: How Much Do Explanations from the Teacher Aid Students?
Pruthi, D., Bansal, R., Dhingra, B., Soares, L. B., Collins, M., Lipton, Z. C., Neubig, G., & Cohen, W. W. (2022) · Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics · doi:10.1162/tacl_a_00465 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Bias in science: natural and social
May, J. (2020) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-020-02937-0 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
International Norms, Moral Psychology, and Neuroscience
Price, R. M., & Sikkink, K. (2021) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108966610 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Connecting earnings management to the real World:What happens in the black box of the boardroom?
Brennan, N. (2021) · The British Accounting Review · doi:10.1016/j.bar.2021.101036 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Action on climate change requires deliberative framing at local governance level
Romsdahl, R. J., Blue, G., & Kirilenko, A. (2018) · Climatic Change · doi:10.1007/s10584-018-2240-0 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Machine Thinking, Fast and Slow
Bonnefon, J., & Rahwan, I. (2020) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.09.007 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Wharton, T., Bonard, C., Dukes, D., Sander, D., & Oswald, S. (2021) · Journal of Pragmatics · doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.06.001 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Agency, Intelligence and Reasons in Animals
Glock, H. (2019) · Philosophy · doi:10.1017/s0031819119000275 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Mazarr, M. J., Bauer, R., Casey, A., Heintz, S., & Matthews, L. J. (2019) · RAND Corporation eBooks · doi:10.7249/rr2714 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Skepticism Motivated: On the Skeptical Import of Motivated Reasoning
Carter, J. A., & McKenna, R. (2020) · Canadian Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.1017/can.2020.16 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Cognitive Biases that Interfere with Critical Thinking and Scientific Reasoning: A Course ModulePreprint
Friedman, H. H. (2017) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2958800 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Assertions, Handicaps, and Social Norms
Graham, P. J. (2020) · Episteme · doi:10.1017/epi.2019.53 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
The Psychopharmacology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Preclinical Roadmap
Szechtman, H., Harvey, B. H., Woody, E. Z., & Hoffman, K. L. (2019) · Pharmacological Reviews · doi:10.1124/pr.119.017772 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Pre-Service Teachers’ Analysis of Claims About COVID-19 in an Online Course
Sarıbaş, D., & Çetinkaya, E. (2020) · Science & Education · doi:10.1007/s11191-020-00181-z · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Does discussion make crowds any wiser?
Mercier, H., & Claidière, N. (2021) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104912 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Self-citationFrom Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning
Wojtowicz, Z., & DeDeo, S. (2020) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.09.013 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change
Wormbs, N., & Söderberg, M. W. (2021) · Urban Planning · doi:10.17645/up.v6i2.3974 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Human Self‐Domestication and the Evolution of Pragmatics
Benítez‐Burraco, A., Ferretti, F., & Progovac, L. (2021) · Cognitive Science · doi:10.1111/cogs.12987 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Meta-learned models of cognition
Binz, M., Dasgupta, I., Jagadish, A. K., Botvinick, M., Wang, J. X., & Schulz, E. (2024) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x23003266 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Marcus, G. E. (2021) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781003057680-6 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Ethnoscientific expertise and knowledge specialisation in 55 traditional cultures
Lightner, A. D., Heckelsmiller, C., & Hagen, E. H. (2021) · Evolutionary Human Sciences · doi:10.1017/ehs.2021.31 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Who’s Afraid of Adversariality? Conflict and Cooperation in Argumentation
Novaes, C. D. (2020) · Topoi · doi:10.1007/s11245-020-09736-9 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
We cannot infer by accepting testimony
Hlobil, U. (2018) · Philosophical Studies · doi:10.1007/s11098-018-1142-3 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Evans, J. (2020) · Journal of Social Computing · doi:10.23919/jsc.2020.0002 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Novaes, C. D. (2020) · Cited by 32 · see citing works
The Relationship of Motivation with Achievement in Mathematics
Michaelides, M. P., Brown, G., Eklöf, H., & Papanastasiou, E. C. (2019) · IEA research for education · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26183-2_2 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Disinformation Society, communication and cosmopolitan democracy
Marshall, J. P. (2017) · Cosmopolitan Civil Societies An Interdisciplinary Journal · doi:10.5130/ccs.v9i2.5477 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Shortcutted Commonsense: Data Spuriousness in Deep Learning of Commonsense Reasoning
Branco, R., Branco, A., Rodrigues, J. A., & Silva, J. (2021) · Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) · doi:10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main.113 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Norm conflicts and conditionals.
Skovgaard‐Olsen, N., Kellen, D., Hahn, U., & Klauer, K. C. (2019) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000150 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Why It's OK to Speak Your Mind
Joshi, H. (2021) · PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Witnessing, Remembering, and Testifying: Why the Past Is Special for Human Beings
Mahr, J. B., & Csibra, G. (2020) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691619879167 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Category-based induction in conceptual spaces
Osta‐Vélez, M., & Gärdenfors, P. (2020) · Journal of Mathematical Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jmp.2020.102357 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Fake News and Propaganda: A Critical Discourse Research Perspective
Vamanu, I. (2019) · Open Information Science · doi:10.1515/opis-2019-0014 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Qin, L., Shwartz, V., West, P., Bhagavatula, C., Hwang, J. D., Bras, R. J. L., Bosselut, A., & Choi, Y. (2020) · Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) · doi:10.18653/v1/2020.emnlp-main.58 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
A BRIEF HISTORY OF RATIONALITY: REASON, REASONABLENESS, RATIONALITY, AND REASONS
Schäfer, K. (2018) · Manuscrito · doi:10.1590/0100-6045.2018.v41n4.ks · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Noumenal power: concept and explanation
Lukes, S. (2018) · Journal of Political Power · doi:10.1080/2158379x.2018.1433755 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Pre-emptive interaction in language change and ontogeny: the case of [there is no NP]
Tantucci, V., & Cristofaro, M. D. (2020) · Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory · doi:10.1515/cllt-2020-0007 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Hertz, U., Bell, V., & Raihani, N. (2021) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2021.1414 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Risks from self-referential peer review echo chambers developing in research fields
Unerman, J. (2020) · The British Accounting Review · doi:10.1016/j.bar.2020.100910 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Chudnoff, E. (2019) · Australasian Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.1080/00048402.2019.1658121 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Werth, A. J., & Allchin, D. (2020) · Evolution Education and Outreach · doi:10.1186/s12052-020-00118-8 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Socio-cognitive biases in folk AI ethics and risk discourse
Laakasuo, M., Herzon, V., Perander, S., Drosinou, M., Sundvall, J. R. I., Palomäki, J., & Visala, A. (2021) · AI and Ethics · doi:10.1007/s43681-021-00060-5 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Mercier, H., & Boyer, P. (2020) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.11.004 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Fact of Unreasonable Pluralism
Ancell, A. (2019) · Journal of the American Philosophical Association · doi:10.1017/apa.2019.17 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
What Is Epistemic Entitlement?
Graham, P. J. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108666404.005 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Japanese preschoolers’ evaluation of circular and non-circular arguments
Mercier, H., Sudo, M., Castelain, T., Bernard, S., & Matsui, T. (2017) · European Journal of Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1080/17405629.2017.1308250 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Self-citationNarratives as a coordinating device for reversing regional disequilibrium
Collier, P., & Tuckett, D. (2021) · Oxford review of economic policy · doi:10.1093/oxrep/graa060 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Forsgärde, E.-S., Svensson, A., Rööst, M., Fridlund, B., & Elmqvist, C. (2021) · International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being · doi:10.1080/17482631.2021.1970095 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Brożek, B. (2019) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108695084 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Adversariality and Ideal Argumentation: A Second-Best Perspective
Daoust, M. (2021) · Topoi · doi:10.1007/s11245-021-09749-y · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Nettle, D. (2018) · Open Book Publishers · doi:10.11647/obp.0155 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Explaining the Evidence: How the Mind Investigates the World
Lagnado, D. A. (2021) · Cited by 18 · see citing works
The Roles We Make Others Take: Thoughts on the Ethics of Arguing
Stevens, K. (2019) · Topoi · doi:10.1007/s11245-019-09659-0 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Deriving Features of Religions in the Wild
Boyer, P. (2021) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-021-09410-y · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Second Thoughts and the Epistemological Enterprise
Kornblith, H. (2019) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108682688 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Mascaro, O., Aguirre, M., Brun, M., Couderc, A., & Mercier, H. (2019) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000779 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Self-citationHow We Think about Human Nature: The Naturalizing Error
Allchin, D., & Werth, A. J. (2020) · Philosophy of Science · doi:10.1086/708707 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Elgin’s community-oriented steadfastness
Kraay, K. J. (2019) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02384-6 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Why Divination?: Evolved Psychology and Strategic Interaction in the Production of Truth
Boyer, P. (2020) · Current Anthropology · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Epistemic Vigilance and the Science/Religion Distinction
Talmont-Kamiński, K. (2020) · Journal of Cognition and Culture · doi:10.1163/15685373-12340075 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Feeling the feels: Spinozist ethics and musical feeling in an American jail
McGraw, A. (2020) · Culture, theory and critique/Culture, theory & critique · doi:10.1080/14735784.2020.1858126 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
What Mary Poppins Knew: Theory of Mind, Children's Literature, History
Zunshine, L. (2019) · Narrative · doi:10.1353/nar.2019.0000 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
How Good Are We At Evaluating Communicated Information?
Mercier, H. (2021) · Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement · doi:10.1017/s1358246121000096 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Self-citationQin, L., Shwartz, V., West, P., Bhagavatula, C., Hwang, J. D., Bras, R. J. L., Bosselut, A., & Choi, Y. (2020) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2010.05906 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
How should we promote transient diversity in science?
Wu, J., & O’Connor, C. (2023) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04037-1 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Virtuous Arguers: Responsible and Reliable
Gascón, J. Á. (2018) · Argumentation · doi:10.1007/s10503-018-9454-1 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
- Authors
- MERCIER, H., & SPERBER, D.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Central European University - Budapest Campus (HU)
- Venue
- Harvard University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Published
- 2017-04-17
- OpenAlex
- W2907590372
- Cited by
- 317
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 89 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 4
- FWCI
- 54.75
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Harvard University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- reason, argumentation, social cognition, epistemic justification, reasoning biases, cognitive mechanisms, belief updating, cognitive evolution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
