In Defense of Logical Minds

Selmer Bringsjord, Ron Noel, Elizabeth Bringsjord
selmer@rpi.edu www.rpi.edu/ brings
The Minds & Machines Laboratory
Dept. of Philosophy, Psychology & Cognitive Science
Department of Computer Science (S.B.)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy NY USA

Abstract:

According to the received view in the psychology of reasoning, Piaget's view that

Humans naturally develop a context-free deductive reasoning scheme at the level of elementary first-order logic.

has been overthrown by the poor performance of educated adult subjects on specific logic problems (e.g., Wason's selection task). We propose that Piaget's (or at least a variant) is alive and well, because the subjects in question are simply victims of a defective education. With a modicum of the right sort of logic training, humans reason deductively on logic problems well enough to vindicate Piaget.

• The Received View: Piaget Dead on Deductive Reasoning
• Four Puzzles
  • P1: Wason's Selection Task
  • P2: The THOG Problem
  • P3
  • P4
• Responses
• Our Response
• Empirical Support for Our Response
• References
• About this document ...