The Enigma of Reason

I’ve just finished reading The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. They posit that reasoning abilities evolved in human beings in concert with widespread use of language and the need for cooperation in social settings, both intensive and extensive. Their interactionist approach is contrasted to the present intellectualist approach – that reason is a “means to improve individual cognition and arrive on one’s own at better beliefs and decisions”. Mercier and Sperber argue that we come up with reasons for “social consumption… an adaptation for the hypersocial niche humans have built for themselves.”

Cognitive psychologists have been fascinated with the seemingly odd reasoning errors that humans make. We should know better (according to the intellectualist view) but again and again, we make the same errors in judgment. One possible explanation is that two systems are at work; a faster intuitive System 1 that uses heuristics, shortcuts, works mainly at the subconscious level; a slower deliberative System 2 does the hard work of conscious thinking through reasons. Mercier and Sperber upend this view with the claim that reasoning functions similarly to other information-gathering inference modules, vision being a prime example. Optical illusions are, in a sense, neighbors to seemingly blatant ‘failures’ in reasoning.

The practical thrust of their argument is two-fold. First, they explain how and why our ‘first instinct’ reasoning is both biased and lazy. Generally, on our own, we come to a conclusion intuitively and then come up with reasons to justify our conclusion. This seems backwards – don’t you want to come up with reasons that then lead you to the conclusion? – but makes good sense of the data from cognitive psychology experiments. I sometimes wonder how and why students come up with the flimsiest explanations when answering my questions even though we’ve covered a topic (in my opinion) extensively and carefully. Mercier and Sperber’s framework makes sense in this context. I’ve even started to notice how, on my own in my own little head, I can dream up all manner of weak reasoning with regard to an action I’m about to take or have already taken. It takes more work for me to challenge my initial intuitions.

This brings us to the second part of the authors’ argument, that while we might be poor at recognizing our own biased and lazy reasoning, we are actually circumspect when we listen to the arguments of others, especially when their conclusions seem to disagree with our own. This provides an opportunity to sharpen our ideas and possibly to counter our own biases and laziness. How do we improve? By arguing. Why are we biased and lazy to begin with? It’s actually more efficient, and in many cases over millennia this has served humankind well. However, the speed in which we have reshaped our environment into our complex interconnected urban life has made things much more difficult – we now call these ‘wicked’ problems. We are caught in a vast technological system, and finding one’s way out of the morass is unclear.

The Enigma of Reason thus provides reasons for why reason can sometimes seem so flawed. It also explains why seemingly rational people can entertain conspiracy theories, and come up with all sorts of reasons to support their views. Groupthink, polarization, the poor efficacy of group brainstorming, failures of predictive power even among experts, have an underlying evolutionary mechanism according to the authors. But their view is not bleak. There are many examples of how interactions, productive arguments, group work, and even one’s ego in not wanting to look like an idiot, can all play positive roles in improving reasoning skills and abilities. This might partially explain why think-pair-share strategies (where you pair up students with different answers), team-based-learning, and related approaches, work under the right circumstances.

As an educator, I found this book challenging in a good food-for-thought way. It certainly strengthens my view (perhaps my bias) that teaching and learning is a relational activity, with back-and-forth questions and answers – arguing, if you will. A key classroom activity is modeling, but also having students practice, how to argue one’s way through solving a problem. The argument might not involve raised voices, but focuses rather on scaffolding a structure for students to think through in problem-solving. How does one get better at this? By providing many examples. You get better at thinking like a chemist by working on more chemistry-related problems using facts, principles, theories, and arguments, you’ve been learning in chemistry class. Mercier and Sperber’s theory also provides an explanation of why the fad of generalized ‘critical thinking’ approaches show poor results; and why transferring critical skills across domains remains challenging.

Reading the book made me wonder if I don’t argue enough with my colleagues, friends, and family. If arguing (in a positive and constructive manner, of course!) is critical in improving one’s reasoning abilities, to guard against lazy and biased self-reasoning, I should be doing it more often – we should be like iron sharpening iron! But there are other factors at play in a complex, social environment. The authors acknowledge these complications, and as social creatures, many of us are intuitively cognizant in these situations, and try not to be blunderbusses. I suppose one quieter way to learn reasoning skills is also to read widely, digesting and arguing for and against the views of different authors. It’s also a reminder for me to pause and be more thoughtful if I’m on the verge of getting into an argument.