Choice Reviews Online · 1996 · 443 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesPhilosophyCognitive PsychologyEpistemologyPhilosophy Of ScienceBounded RationalityCognitive ScienceScientific EvidenceScientific ReasoningEpistemic RationalityProbabilistic Reasoning
Human rationality is contested, with decades of experiments indicating systematic errors in logical reasoning, probabilistic judgment, similarity assessment, and risk evaluation. The book critically examines whether empirical evidence can establish human irrationality or whether rationality is a conceptual truth, as argued by philosophers. Stein analyzes competing conceptions of rationality and evaluates the empirical studies cited in the debate. He concludes that human rationality must be addressed empirically using advanced cognitive science and that this empirical approach should also inform epistemology, advocating naturalized epistemology.
Are humans rational? Various experiments performed over the last several decades have been interpreted as showing that humans are irrational-we make significant and consistent errors in logical reasoning, probabilistic reasoning, similarity judgements, and risk-assessment, to name a few areas. But can these experiments establish human irrationality, or is it a conceptual truth that humans must be rational, as various philosophers have argued? In this book, Edward Stein offers a clear critical account of this debate about rationality in philosophy and cognitive science. He discusses concepts of rationality-the pictures of rationality that the debate centres on-and assesses the empirical evidence used to argue that humans are irrational. He concludes that the question of human rationality must be answered not conceptually but empirically, using the full resources of an advanced cognitive science. Furthermore, he extends this conclusion to argue that empirical considerations are also relevant to the theory of knowledge-in other words, that epistemology should be naturalized.