Group Thinking - Argumentative Theory of Reasoning

We can create amazing things, be it in Science, Technology, or Art. We have gone further than any other living being in our planet, the scale of our accomplishments is unparalleled, we have made changes, for better and for worse, in the whole surface of our planet. And yet, as we have seen, our reasoning, while well adapted to the environment of our ancestors, has serious flaws and, while we can sometimes achieve much more when several of us are involved, communities can also create a whole new level of problems for the problem of pursuing the truth.

So, why are we exactly the way we are? Logical rules are not really complicated and could work inside our brains almost without any cost. On the other hand, Classical Logic (we will talk about different logics in future posts) assumes some statements to be true and, in the real world, we can not simply choose some premises to be true. In that sense, it might not have been easily applicable in many circumstances. Still the question remains, what were the forces that drove the evolution of our intellect to the point we are today?

Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber recently proposed an idea that seems to capture at least one essential aspect of the answer to that question. What they observed is that our mental and verbal skills, what we say to each other, might not have evolved for the pursuit of truth. What they have proposed is that, as social beings, our reasoning evolved in an environment where, if you were believed, you would have more power and a better chance at surviving. And that meant a pressure to be able to argument well and convince people, regardless of the correctness of the underlying reasoning. Their Argumentative Theory of Reasoning states that our reasoning exists for the purpose of making us competent at debating and convincing others. And that is often not the same as arriving at the right answer.

And, as a matter of fact, Mercier observed that the idea that we reason in order to make convincing arguments (that might turn out to be true or not) seems to be applicable also for children and other cultures. All of this does not mean that we can not use our intellects to pursue correct answers to the problems we face. When comparing our abilities in the formally identical logical problems of the cards and of alcohol consumption, we have seen that, for situations we are used to, we actually reason in competent ways. Finding better answers must also have contributed to shaping our reasoning. But the evidence that a good part of it evolved simply to allow us to win arguments is quite compelling.