GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017
'Original and provocative … likely to have a big impact on our understanding of ourselves' Steven Pinker
'Mercier and Sperber offer a surprising and powerful response to the new orthodoxy propounded by Kahneman and Tversky … arguing that the supposed flaws of hot, fast, automatic thinking are actually design features which work remarkably well' Julian Baggini
Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. But, if reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If it is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense?
In their ground-breaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma, taking us on a journey from desert ants to modern scientists, and from Aristotle to Daniel Kahneman. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of…
