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Shoddy Scholarship or Something More Sinister?

​​Serious questions have emerged regarding the scholarship behind the book, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding (paperback, Harvard, 2018). The authors, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, claim to offer a novel account of human reasoning, namely that it evolved to solve the joint problems of argumentation and justification.
The problem is that central ideas promoted as new are not. Their central thesis, that “what reason does is to is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us,” is an apt description of the Justification Hypothesis, which has been in the professional literature for more than 15 years (Henriques, 2003).

More to the point, Dr. Mercier was made aware of the literature on the Justification Hypothesis back in 2013 in an email exchange. Since that time, Mercier and Sperber’s theory of human reasoning moved from the argumentative theory in 2011 to one that includes the dual functions of argumentation and justification presently. In other words, their account of human reasoning went from being highly similar to the Justification Hypothesis in 2013 to being almost identical to it in 2017. And there is no discussion of the Justification Hypothesis anywhere in their book; rather they tout their view as a completely novel approach that has never before been put forth.

The facts are such that only one of two conclusions can be reached: Either (a) Drs. Mercier and Sperber have been remarkably negligent in their review of the literature, such that they are claiming to have a new idea that they were already informed about but somehow overlooked and thus their work is a striking example of shoddy scholarship; or (b) there is a more sinister explanation that one or both acted with intent.

The collected material lays out the facts about what has occurred. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
Shoddy Scholarship or Something More Sinister?: A blog describing the state of affairs.
Letter to Ian Malcom at Harvard University Press
Table of Quotations Comparing the approaches
Timeline of Events
References on Justification Hypothesis
Screenshot of Mercier Amazon Denial
2013 Email Exchanges with Dr. Mercier
July 2018 Email Exchanges with Dr. Sperber
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  • Home
  • Overview of the System
  • Publications
    • Unified Theory
    • Unified Approach
    • Miscellaneous Papers
    • Additional Authors
    • JH Dispute
  • Presentations
    • 8 Key Ideas >
      • TOK
      • JH
      • BIT
      • Influence Matrix
      • CAST
      • Character Wheel
      • Nested Model
      • CALM MO
    • The Garden of UTUA >
      • Story of the Emergence of the Garden
      • The Garden
      • Glossary of Terms
      • World of UTUA
      • The iQuad Pathway
    • Class Presentations >
      • Integrative Psychotherapy >
        • Class 1 Intro
        • Class 2 Overview of PI, UP & TEST RePP
        • Class 3 & 4 Insights from the Cognitive Approach
        • Class 5 Broadening CPT
        • Class 6 Emotion Focused Therapy
        • Class 7 The Modern Psychodynamic Perspecitice
        • Class 8 Integrative Dynamic Therapy
        • Class 9 Interpersonal Approaches
        • Class 10 - Stage of Change, Outcome Informed Principles and Discussion of Diversity
        • Class 11 - Diversity, Values, and Well-being
      • Personality >
        • Class 1 Personality Theories
        • Class 2 Freud
        • Class 3 Psychodynamic Theory
        • Class 4 The Humanists
        • Class 5 The Behaviorists and Social Cognitivists
        • Class 6 The Character Wheel
        • Class 7 Motivation (and Emotion)
        • Class 8 Characteristic Adaptations
        • Class 8b Putting Human Personality/Social Psychology in Action
        • Class 9 Identity part 1
        • Class 10 Identity part 2
        • Class 11 Cultural Perspectives
        • Class 12 Biological Perspectives
      • Social Psychology >
        • Class 1 Intro
        • Class 2 Cognitive Dissonance
        • Class 3 Moral Reasoning
        • Class 4 - Building Personal Justification Systems
        • Class 5 Emotions and their Regulation
        • Class 6 Entering the Matrix
        • Class 7 Social Cognition
        • Class 8 - Conformity, Persuasion, and Communication
        • Class 9 - Biological and Social Perspectives on Gender
        • Class 10 The Vertical Dimension of Relating
        • Class 11 - Loving, Liking, Attraction, and Pro-social Behavior
        • Class 12 - Relationships, Relational Value, and Mental Health
    • Professional Presentations >
      • From Racing Horses to Seeing the Elephant
      • ​The Role of Theory in Bridging the Science-Practice Divide
      • Assessing and Treating Suicidal Individuals
      • Defining Behavior with the TOK System
      • A Straightforward Model for Understanding "Depression"
      • From E. Psychology to M.E. Psychology
      • Searching for the Good Life
      • CI Presentation
      • Opiod Presentation
      • InterSubjective Mental Behaviorism
      • Mapping and Measuring the Human Relationship System
      • The Five Biggest Milestones In Cosmological History
      • Practical Interventions to Promote Medical Treatment Engagement
      • Well-Being and College Student Mental Health
      • The Next Wave in Evidence Based Practice
      • Well-Being
      • The Unified Psychotherapy Movement
  • Theory of Knowledge Society
    • TOK Conference Presentations >
      • Opening Remarks Day 1
      • Narrating Psychology from the Top Down
      • The Emerging Science of Virtue as an Exemplar of a Moral Science
      • Homeostasis, Evolution and Mental Health
      • Sociology’s Contributions to a ‘Big Theory Of Knowledge’
      • Opening Remarks Day 2
      • Ripples in the Cosmic Web
      • Evolution, Well-being and Human Values
      • On the Evolution of Emotions and Learning
      • Dreams: A Unified Approach
      • Whence and Whither Knowledge
      • Cultural Genetics and the Mystery of Human Dignity
      • Between Fact and Value: Sartre and the Problem of Ultimate Justifications
  • Unified Theory Book
  • PT Blog
  • JMU CI Program
  • Contact