Description
Book SynopsisGood reasoning can lead to success; bad reasoning can lead to catastrophe. Yet, it''s not obvious how we reason, and why we make mistakes - so much of our mental life goes on outside our awareness. In recent years huge strides have been made into developing a scientific understanding of reasoning. This new book by one of the pioneers of the field, Philip Johnson-Laird, looks at the mental processes that underlie our reasoning. It provides the most accessible account yet of the science of reasoning.We can all reason from our childhood onwards - but how? ''How we reason'' outlines a bold approach to understanding reasoning. According to this approach, we don''t rely on the laws of logic or probability - we reason by thinking about what''s possible, we reason by seeing what is common to the possibilities. As the book shows, this approach can answer many of the questions about how we reason, and what causes mistakes in our reasoning that can lead to disasters such as Chernobyl. It shows wh
Table of Contents1. Introduction ; PART I - THE WORLD IN OUR CONSCIOUS MINDS ; 2. Icons and Images ; 3. Models of Possibilities: From Conjuring Tricks to Disasters ; PART II - THE WORLD IN OUR UNCONSCIOUS MINDS ; 4. Mental Architecture and the Unconscious ; 5. Intuitions and Unconscious Reasoning ; 6. Emotions as Inferences ; 7. Reasoning in Psychological Illnesses ; PART III - HOW WE MAKE DEDUCTIONS ; 8. Only Connections ; 9. I'm my own Grandpa: Reasoning About Identities and Other Relations ; 10. Syllogisms and Reasoning about Properties ; 11. Isn't Everyone an Optimist? The Case of Complex Reasoning ; PART IV - HOW WE MAKE INDUCTIONS ; 12. Modulation: A Step Towards Induction ; 13. Knowledge and Inductions ; 14. Sherlock Holmes's Method: Abduction ; 15. The Balance of Probabilities ; PART V - WHAT MAKES US RATIONAL ; 16. Counterexamples ; 17. Truths, Lies, and the Higher Reasoning ; PART VI - HOW WE DEVELOP OUR ABILITY TO REASON ; 18. On Development ; 19. Strategies and Cultures ; 20. How We can Improve our Reasoning ; PART VII - KNOWLEDGE, BELIEFS, AND PROBLEMS ; 21. The Puzzles of If ; 22. Causes and Obligations ; 23. Beliefs, Heresies, and Changes in Mind ; 24. How we Solve Problems ; PART VIII - EXPERT REASONING IN TECHNOLOGY, LOGIC, AND SCIENCE ; 25. Flying Bicycles: How the Wright Brothers Invented the Airplane ; 26. Unwrapping an Enigma ; 27. On the Mode of the Communication of Cholera ; 28. How we Reason
