The Enigma of Reason

Summary

The Enigma of Reason by Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier offers a provocative and scientifically grounded exploration of the human capacity for reasoning. The authors challenge the traditional view that reason evolved to help individuals make better decisions or discover truth. Instead, they propose their Argumentative Theory of Reason, which states that reason evolved primarily to support social interaction, communication, and persuasion.

What this means is that reasoning is best thought of as a way of dismantling other people's ideas, while protecting and strengthening your own (something that doesn't make you friends btw). Reasoning is not designed to get you closer to truth, which explains a lot of the biased thinking that people do all the time.

Normally, biases are seen as flaws. Especially when viewing reason as a thinking tool leading to truth. This is the heart of the book, the enigma of reason. "Why", the authors ask, "do we fall into stupid traps of thinking, if reasoning evolved to make us clear thinkers?"

Within their theory, the answer becomes obvious.

Reasoning, according to this book, is a social phenomenon. It serves three purposes:

• justifying beliefs and actions to others.
• evaluating and countering arguments from others.
• facilitating cooperation and coordination within groups.

Reasoning is more about forming group cohesion and informing group choices, even if those choices aren't always optimal, correct or based on truth. Producing a sensible choice that everybody is behind, is more important and advantageous to the survival of the group, even if that choice is slightly wrong or based on something false.

Biases in this theory, are reframed as adaptive tools for reasoning, because if truth is not the goal that reasoning evolved but social cohesion is, biases start to make a lot more sense.

Interestingly enough, reasoning can still be salvaged to get to truth, through the use of argument and dialogue. Reasoning is optimized for constructing and evaluating arguments. This means it is more effective in group settings than in individual problem solving.

People are skilled at spotting flaws in others' arguments but overlook weaknesses in their own reasoning. This asymmetry can promote productive debate, where collective reasoning leads to better outcomes than individual reasoning. This ideas is what Tim Urban would call "idea labs". Where we try to get closer to truth by iteratively proposing new ideas and then working together to find their flaws and improve upon them. It is also a core part of the philosophy of science and a beginning of Infinity.

Reasoning can thus be split into two parts:

• productive reasoning, coming up with your own arguments
• reactive reasoning, dismantling other people's arguments

If we use either of those two in isolation, we are more likely to fall into fallacies and biased thinking. If we use the two together, we can use the full potential of reasoning and have a better chance of uncovering truth.

Key Ideas

• Reasoning is social.
• Biases, in this context, are a feature, not a bug.
• Group reasoning is a powerful tool and very adaptive.
• Cultural Evolution is driven by reasoning.
• Reason has two parts - productive and reactive, generation and critique of arguments.

In Summary the book challenges the traditional view of reason as a tool for individual truth-seeking, reframing it as a social adaptation designed for communication and persuasion.