Hugo Mercier

“It is based, however, on a convenient fiction: most reasons are after-the-fact rationalizations. Still, this fictional use of reasons plays a central role in human interactions, from the most trivial to the most dramatic.”
― Hugo Mercier, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding

“Whereas reason is commonly viewed as the use of logic, or at least some system of rules to expand and improve our knowledge and our decisions, we argue that reason is much more opportunistic and eclectic and is not bound to formal norms. The main role of logic in reasoning, we suggest, may well be a rhetorical one: logic helps simplify and schematize intuitive arguments, highlighting and often exaggerating their force. So, why did reason evolve? What does it provide, over and above what is provided by more ordinary forms of inference, that could have been of special value to humans and to humans alone? To answer, we adopt a much broader perspective. Reason, we argue, has two main functions: that of producing reasons for justifying oneself, and that of producing arguments to convince others. These two functions rely on the same kinds of reasons and are closely related.”
― Hugo Mercier, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding