Editorial Reviews
Review
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “No cognitive scientist has thought more deeply about human reasoning than Philip Johnson-Laird. In an amazingly comprehensive volume, he presents the fruits of a lifetime of experimentation and reflection. “–Howard Gardner, author of ‘The Mind’s New Science”
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “‘How We Reason’ is the essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the human mind. Phil Johnson-Laird is both erudite and entertaining and his prose sparkles with wit and verve. This book paints a more complete picture of human thought than any other on inference. I couldn’t put it down. “–Ruth M.J. Byrne Vice Provost, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland, and Professor of Cognitive Science, School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “Philip Johnson-Laird’s Mental Model Theory owes its outstanding impact on the psychology of reasoning to its unique breadth, insightfulness, and creativity. In ‘How we Reason’, Johnson-Laird has achieved the feat of presenting this challenging view of human thinking in a simple and yet comprehensive way, with concrete examples and elegant explanations. This highly readable book deserves a wide audience. “–Dan Sperber, Director of Research, CNRS, Paris
“Johnson-Laird gives fascinating accounts of some major examples of scientific reasoning, such as the Wright brothers’ designing of the first successful airplane [and] how the codes underlying the Nazi Enigma machine were broken. “–Science
Product Description
Good 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 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 why our irrational fears may become psychological illnesses, why terrorists develop ‘crazy’ ideologies, and how we can act in order to improve our reasoning. The book ends by looking at the role of reasoning in three extraordinary case histories: the Wright brothers’ use of analogies in inventing their flyer, the cryptanalysts’ deductions in breaking the German’s Enigma code in World War II, and Dr. John Snow’s inductive reasoning in discovering how cholera spread from one person to another.
Accessible, stimulating, and controversial, How we Reason presents a bold new approach to understanding one of the most intriguing facets of being human.
See all Editorial Reviews
A joint venture among Psychology, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Logic, and Computer Engineering,
By Textcontext “JMP” (Central Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: How We Reason (Hardcover)
Among the ten thousand or so academic books published by scholarly presses initially in 2006, there will certainly be a few that will prove instrumental to the preparation of future specialists within their respective fields, specialists who will do their part, in turn, to push back the edge of the unknown in their own incremental ways. Perhaps the true measure of a great book is not the number of copies sold, but the number of scholars–external to the author’s field–whose collective paradigm will be launched toward new productivity through the insights contained in that one book. Only time and future scholarship will tell if Philip N. Johnson-Laird has written “only” another book that will shake up the field of psychology, or if the insights he gleans from cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, logic, and Philosophy’s “Theory of Knowledge” will be duly recognized as a founding document of something new, an experimental science of human understanding.
In _How We Reason_, Johnson-Laird offers up a menu of the four most probable ways humans might figure things out; and he explains why sometimes we goof up. First, our reason might depend on an extraordinary memory; we might be remembering prior solutions–even innate ones learned by our species–and then applying them to contemporary problems. Second, there might be “formal rules” for discovery and learning, a structure of meaning that is a part of the world in which we live and around which our species evolved. Or, perhaps we are more like a competent crafts-person; we master the “content” of the problem, and use this context to devise solutions through trial, error, and improvisation. Finally, we may be creating “models of possibility.” By starting with all of the possible solutions to a problem, we quickly cast out all of the unlikely and the inconsistent, leaving only the probable.
Johnson-Laird shows that inferences are not all the same, and therefore the ways we solve problems are also diverse. Our solutions can be combinations of these four possible approaches. But through an interesting argument, one with a surprise ending that I refuse to ruin in a review, Johnson-Laird challenges a century’s phenomenological mistrust of context and advanced cognitive processes. Much of human reason arises from models and skills (such as abduction, deduction, and induction). The implications of this theory will encourage a return to fashionable contextualization in analysis, and should change the way courses in logic, theory of knowledge, philosophy of history, and epistemology are taught. I shall leave the evaluation of the book’s impact on psychology to another reviewer, hopefully a specialist in recent cognitive sciences.
Until recently, the projects undertaken in _How We Reason_ would have been relegated to the Philosophy department, and turf intrusions would have been robustly repelled. With the development of this new experimental science of understanding, or whatever it turns out to be called, there will still be room for the philosopher and logistician, working elbow-to-elbow with physiologists, computer engineers, and psychologists. Historically, many of our greatest breakthroughs have resulted from the application of one “field’s” problems, methods, and tools to another “field’s” enigma. The application of optics to astronomy, as one example of this productive cross-fertilization, may now seem obvious in retrospect. Likewise, this joint venture between computer modeling, symbolic logic, Philosophy of Mind, and cognitive psychology, provides an experimental platform for Epistemology. This may soon be ambient to the way we approach human reason. This book should be read in many halls of the academy. Because it is free of jargon, unnecessary psycho-babble, and meta-language, I can recommend this wonderful book to any interested (and intelligent) reader.
Search Amazon.com: How We Reason: Philip Johnson-Laird: Books from AmAzon
How We ReasonPrice:USD 35.9521 used & new available from USD 31.85
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Editorial Reviews
Review
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “No cognitive scientist has thought more deeply about human reasoning than Philip Johnson-Laird. In an amazingly comprehensive volume, he presents the fruits of a lifetime of experimentation and reflection. “–Howard Gardner, author of ‘The Mind’s New Science”
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “‘How We Reason’ is the essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the human mind. Phil Johnson-Laird is both erudite and entertaining and his prose sparkles with wit and verve. This book paints a more complete picture of human thought than any other on inference. I couldn’t put it down. “–Ruth M.J. Byrne Vice Provost, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland, and Professor of Cognitive Science, School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: “Philip Johnson-Laird’s Mental Model Theory owes its outstanding impact on the psychology of reasoning to its unique breadth, insightfulness, and creativity. In ‘How we Reason’, Johnson-Laird has achieved the feat of presenting this challenging view of human thinking in a simple and yet comprehensive way, with concrete examples and elegant explanations. This highly readable book deserves a wide audience. “–Dan Sperber, Director of Research, CNRS, Paris
“Johnson-Laird gives fascinating accounts of some major examples of scientific reasoning, such as the Wright brothers’ designing of the first successful airplane [and] how the codes underlying the Nazi Enigma machine were broken. “–Science
Product Description
Good 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 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 why our irrational fears may become psychological illnesses, why terrorists develop ‘crazy’ ideologies, and how we can act in order to improve our reasoning. The book ends by looking at the role of reasoning in three extraordinary case histories: the Wright brothers’ use of analogies in inventing their flyer, the cryptanalysts’ deductions in breaking the German’s Enigma code in World War II, and Dr. John Snow’s inductive reasoning in discovering how cholera spread from one person to another.
Accessible, stimulating, and controversial, How we Reason presents a bold new approach to understanding one of the most intriguing facets of being human.
See all Editorial Reviews
A joint venture among Psychology, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Logic, and Computer Engineering,
By Textcontext “JMP” (Central Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: How We Reason (Hardcover)
Among the ten thousand or so academic books published by scholarly presses initially in 2006, there will certainly be a few that will prove instrumental to the preparation of future specialists within their respective fields, specialists who will do their part, in turn, to push back the edge of the unknown in their own incremental ways. Perhaps the true measure of a great book is not the number of copies sold, but the number of scholars–external to the author’s field–whose collective paradigm will be launched toward new productivity through the insights contained in that one book. Only time and future scholarship will tell if Philip N. Johnson-Laird has written “only” another book that will shake up the field of psychology, or if the insights he gleans from cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, logic, and Philosophy’s “Theory of Knowledge” will be duly recognized as a founding document of something new, an experimental science of human understanding.
In _How We Reason_, Johnson-Laird offers up a menu of the four most probable ways humans might figure things out; and he explains why sometimes we goof up. First, our reason might depend on an extraordinary memory; we might be remembering prior solutions–even innate ones learned by our species–and then applying them to contemporary problems. Second, there might be “formal rules” for discovery and learning, a structure of meaning that is a part of the world in which we live and around which our species evolved. Or, perhaps we are more like a competent crafts-person; we master the “content” of the problem, and use this context to devise solutions through trial, error, and improvisation. Finally, we may be creating “models of possibility.” By starting with all of the possible solutions to a problem, we quickly cast out all of the unlikely and the inconsistent, leaving only the probable.
Johnson-Laird shows that inferences are not all the same, and therefore the ways we solve problems are also diverse. Our solutions can be combinations of these four possible approaches. But through an interesting argument, one with a surprise ending that I refuse to ruin in a review, Johnson-Laird challenges a century’s phenomenological mistrust of context and advanced cognitive processes. Much of human reason arises from models and skills (such as abduction, deduction, and induction). The implications of this theory will encourage a return to fashionable contextualization in analysis, and should change the way courses in logic, theory of knowledge, philosophy of history, and epistemology are taught. I shall leave the evaluation of the book’s impact on psychology to another reviewer, hopefully a specialist in recent cognitive sciences.
Until recently, the projects undertaken in _How We Reason_ would have been relegated to the Philosophy department, and turf intrusions would have been robustly repelled. With the development of this new experimental science of understanding, or whatever it turns out to be called, there will still be room for the philosopher and logistician, working elbow-to-elbow with physiologists, computer engineers, and psychologists. Historically, many of our greatest breakthroughs have resulted from the application of one “field’s” problems, methods, and tools to another “field’s” enigma. The application of optics to astronomy, as one example of this productive cross-fertilization, may now seem obvious in retrospect. Likewise, this joint venture between computer modeling, symbolic logic, Philosophy of Mind, and cognitive psychology, provides an experimental platform for Epistemology. This may soon be ambient to the way we approach human reason. This book should be read in many halls of the academy. Because it is free of jargon, unnecessary psycho-babble, and meta-language, I can recommend this wonderful book to any interested (and intelligent) reader.
Search Amazon.com: How We Reason: Philip Johnson-Laird: Books from AmAzon
Price:USD 35.95
21 used & new available from USD 31.85
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