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Books

The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber

We descend from the divine to the human as Peter Stone reasons about the purpose and uniqueness of human reason.

According to the journalist H.L. Mencken, every complex problem has a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong. The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding by cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber is devoted to examining one such problem and solution. The problem in question is, Why did human beings develop the capacity to reason? The solution, defended by philosophers throughout the ages and by most psychologists today, is that “reason seems to have an obvious function: to help individuals achieve greater knowledge and make better decisions on their own” (p.

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