Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Enigma of Reason

The Enigma of Reason

Mercier, Hugo
Sperber, Dan

Paperback

PhilosophyCognitionGeneral Psychology

Publisher Price: $22.00

ISBN10: 067423782X
ISBN13: 9780674237827
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr
Published: Mar 4 2019
Pages: 408
Weight: 1.10
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.80 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Brilliant...Timely and necessary. --Financial Times

Especially timely as we struggle to make sense of how it is that individuals and communities persist in holding beliefs that have been thoroughly discredited.
--Darren Frey, Science

If reason is what makes us human, why do we behave so irrationally? And if it is so useful, why didn't it evolve in other animals? This groundbreaking account of the evolution of reason by two renowned cognitive scientists seeks to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue, helps us justify our beliefs, convince others, and evaluate arguments. It makes it easier to cooperate and communicate and to live together in groups. Provocative, entertaining, and undeniably relevant, The Enigma of Reason will make many reasonable people rethink their beliefs.

Reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational. Rarely has this insight seemed more relevant...Still, an essential puzzle remains: How did we come to be this way?...Cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber [argue that] reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems...[but] to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.

Also in

Philosophy

View All