Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - April 2011 - Volume 34, Issue 02  

Open Peer Commentary

Understanding, evaluating, and producing arguments: Training is necessary for reasoning skills

Maralee Harrella1

a1 Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. mharrell@cmu.edu http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/faculty-harrell.php

Abstract

This commentary suggests that the general population has much less reasoning skill than is claimed by Mercier & Sperber (M&S). In particular, many studies suggest that the skills of understanding, evaluating, and producing arguments are generally poor in the population of people who have not had specific training.

(Online publication March 29 2011)

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