Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198524496
- eISBN:
- 9780191584923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198524496.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The idea that a deductive competence theory is central to human cognition both has a long pedigree and is widely held by many leading figures in the psychology of reasoning. This chapter argues ...
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The idea that a deductive competence theory is central to human cognition both has a long pedigree and is widely held by many leading figures in the psychology of reasoning. This chapter argues against this tradition in the psychology of reasoning. It claims that almost no everyday human reasoning can be characterized deductively, or has any significant deductive component. Although many theorists have argued that deduction is at the core of cognition, it is argued that it is at the periphery. The chapter begins by clarifying the meaning of the claim that human reasoning involves deduction by introducing Marr’s levels of description of a computational process.Less
The idea that a deductive competence theory is central to human cognition both has a long pedigree and is widely held by many leading figures in the psychology of reasoning. This chapter argues against this tradition in the psychology of reasoning. It claims that almost no everyday human reasoning can be characterized deductively, or has any significant deductive component. Although many theorists have argued that deduction is at the core of cognition, it is argued that it is at the periphery. The chapter begins by clarifying the meaning of the claim that human reasoning involves deduction by introducing Marr’s levels of description of a computational process.
Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199233298
- eISBN:
- 9780191696602
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233298.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The conditional, if…then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. It occurs in all human languages and allows people ...
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The conditional, if…then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. It occurs in all human languages and allows people to express their knowledge of the causal or law-like structure of the world and of others' behaviour. The way in which the conditional is modelled also determines the core of most logical systems. Unsurprisingly, it is also the most-researched expression in the psychology of human reasoning. This book brings together recent developments in the cognitive science and psychology of conditional reasoning. Over the last ten to fifteen years, research on conditionals has come to dominate the psychology of reasoning, providing a rich seam of results that have created new theoretical possibilities. This book shows how these developments have led researchers to view people's conditional reasoning behaviour more as successful probabilistic reasoning rather than as errorful logical reasoning. It shows how the multifarious, and apparently competing, theoretical positions developed over the last fifty years in this area — mental logics, mental models, heuristic approaches, dual process theory, and probabilistic approaches — have responded to these insights. Its organisation reflects the view that an integrative approach is emerging that may need to exploit aspects of all these theoretical positions to explain the rich and complex phenomenon of reasoning with conditionals. It includes an introductory chapter relating the development of the psychology of reasoning to developments in the logic and semantics of the conditional.Less
The conditional, if…then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. It occurs in all human languages and allows people to express their knowledge of the causal or law-like structure of the world and of others' behaviour. The way in which the conditional is modelled also determines the core of most logical systems. Unsurprisingly, it is also the most-researched expression in the psychology of human reasoning. This book brings together recent developments in the cognitive science and psychology of conditional reasoning. Over the last ten to fifteen years, research on conditionals has come to dominate the psychology of reasoning, providing a rich seam of results that have created new theoretical possibilities. This book shows how these developments have led researchers to view people's conditional reasoning behaviour more as successful probabilistic reasoning rather than as errorful logical reasoning. It shows how the multifarious, and apparently competing, theoretical positions developed over the last fifty years in this area — mental logics, mental models, heuristic approaches, dual process theory, and probabilistic approaches — have responded to these insights. Its organisation reflects the view that an integrative approach is emerging that may need to exploit aspects of all these theoretical positions to explain the rich and complex phenomenon of reasoning with conditionals. It includes an introductory chapter relating the development of the psychology of reasoning to developments in the logic and semantics of the conditional.
Igor Douven
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198746904
- eISBN:
- 9780191809125
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198746904.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter discusses how critics of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) complain that the rule has never been properly articulated. Another common complaint is that whatever the precise ...
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This chapter discusses how critics of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) complain that the rule has never been properly articulated. Another common complaint is that whatever the precise formulation of the rule, we can do without it for it must be inferior to Bayes’ rule. It is here suggested that IBE is best thought of as a slogan that can be fleshed out in different ways, where different fleshings-out may have different merits and drawbacks, depending on the context of usage. Some reasons are given for believing that, in some contexts, versions of IBE outperform Bayes’ rule in all important respects.Less
This chapter discusses how critics of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) complain that the rule has never been properly articulated. Another common complaint is that whatever the precise formulation of the rule, we can do without it for it must be inferior to Bayes’ rule. It is here suggested that IBE is best thought of as a slogan that can be fleshed out in different ways, where different fleshings-out may have different merits and drawbacks, depending on the context of usage. Some reasons are given for believing that, in some contexts, versions of IBE outperform Bayes’ rule in all important respects.
