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
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
