A long tradition has regarded human thinking as a solitary, if not solipsistic, exercise aimed at facilitating behavior. This has privileged the assumption that reasoning is mainly for enabling individuals to seek the truth. Mercier and Sperber (M&S) have instead invoked an interpersonal dimension: Reasoning is for arguing.
The idea M&S advance dovetails nicely with our own work, which has endorsed the view that uniquely human forms of cognition serve interpersonal functions. One such function is the use and accumulation of accurate knowledge in culture. To be sure, to say that reasoning is for arguing does not mean reasoning is irrelevant to seeking the truth, but people seek the truth collectively, not individually. Humans are cultural animals, which means they use cultural systems as their strategy for improving survival and reproduction (e.g., Baumeister Reference Baumeister2005). Hence the distinctively human traits, such as the capacity for reason, are mainly for creating culture, sustaining it, and participating in it. Culture accumulates knowledge across time, and huge swathes of knowledge–from cooking and farming to mathematics, science, and technology–can be mastered only by having many individuals build on one another's advances across generations. Arguing is a vital means by which a cultural group builds its stock of knowledge. Even scientists, in principle the most inveterate truth seekers, have been known to argue, and indeed much of the process of science is conducted as arguing with and about evidence. Individuals who are bred to argue can thus combine to form groups that collectively accumulate increasingly accurate knowledge. Meanwhile, hominids born with less capacity to argue would fail to participate fully in culture, which may have reduced their ability to survive and reproduce.
The notion that reasoning is for arguing fits nicely with another argument we have endorsed, which is that human thought is for sharing one's thoughts and experiences with others. For more than a century, psychology has regarded William James's famous conclusion that thinking is for doing as an unassailable truism. Yet our own research has led us to entertain a rival hypothesis, that much of thinking is for talking (see Baumeister & Masicampo Reference Baumeister and Masicampo2010). This applies particularly to conscious thought, defined as the advanced human form of cognition that differs from what most animals have.
Many investigators operationally define conscious thought as those thoughts the person can report to others. Few, however, seem to have heeded the implication that the purpose of conscious thought is precisely for enabling people to tell their thoughts to one another.
The interpersonal bases of thinking are an exciting advance and represent potentially a fundamental change in how the field understands the goals and purposes of human thought, especially conscious thought. There have been two overlapping debates about consciousness in recent decades. One is whether conscious thoughts have any causal influence on behavior. A recent survey suggests a positive answer (Baumeister et al. Reference Baumeister, Masicampo and Vohs2011). The other, more difficult question is what value is served by having thoughts be conscious. That is, could not those same thoughts influence behavior just as effectively without being conscious? It is difficult to make an evolutionary or functional case for advantages of having thoughts inside the individual mind be conscious. But it is easy to make the case for the advantages of being able to communicate thoughts with an organized group, which is what conscious thought enables.
Merely sharing thoughts is already helpful in terms of collective use of information, but M&S's focus on arguing is a huge boost and extension to this line of thinking. We wish we had thought of it! Conscious thought enables people to talk to others and thereby enables small groups to resolve differences. By talking, people can resolve conflicts, influence one another, converge on the truth (aided vitally by reasoning when there are differences), and thereby function together more harmoniously and effectively than nonhuman groups. Nonhuman animals, in contrast, have a have a relatively simple and unsophisticated language apparatus compared with humans. They resolve conflicts through aggression instead of reconciliation, dominate others instead of attempting to persuade one another, and rely on what appears true in the present environment instead of using logical reasoning to understand that things are not always as they initially seem. Thus, M&S's theory sheds light on what has made human beings such a successful species in using culture as an advanced form of social life to improve survival and reproduction.
Consistent with that emphasis and with M&S's article, we have found that logical reasoning depends on conscious thought (DeWall et al. Reference DeWall, Baumeister and Masicampo2008). These experiments showed that reasoning improved as conscious processing was engaged, and reasoning quickly deteriorated when conscious attention was preoccupied elsewhere. In contrast, logical reasoning performance was unaffected by either preoccupying or engaging (priming) the unconscious processing system.
In short, we view M&S's article as an important complement to other work emphasizing human consciousness as serving interpersonal and cultural functions. Conscious thought enables both reasoning and advanced forms of communication, including arguing. Human evolution was partly based on developing mental powers to enable group members to communicate information for group action, which is the foundation of culture. Conscious logical reasoning and interpersonal arguing are vital parts of that process and thus help to define human nature.
A long tradition has regarded human thinking as a solitary, if not solipsistic, exercise aimed at facilitating behavior. This has privileged the assumption that reasoning is mainly for enabling individuals to seek the truth. Mercier and Sperber (M&S) have instead invoked an interpersonal dimension: Reasoning is for arguing.
The idea M&S advance dovetails nicely with our own work, which has endorsed the view that uniquely human forms of cognition serve interpersonal functions. One such function is the use and accumulation of accurate knowledge in culture. To be sure, to say that reasoning is for arguing does not mean reasoning is irrelevant to seeking the truth, but people seek the truth collectively, not individually. Humans are cultural animals, which means they use cultural systems as their strategy for improving survival and reproduction (e.g., Baumeister Reference Baumeister2005). Hence the distinctively human traits, such as the capacity for reason, are mainly for creating culture, sustaining it, and participating in it. Culture accumulates knowledge across time, and huge swathes of knowledge–from cooking and farming to mathematics, science, and technology–can be mastered only by having many individuals build on one another's advances across generations. Arguing is a vital means by which a cultural group builds its stock of knowledge. Even scientists, in principle the most inveterate truth seekers, have been known to argue, and indeed much of the process of science is conducted as arguing with and about evidence. Individuals who are bred to argue can thus combine to form groups that collectively accumulate increasingly accurate knowledge. Meanwhile, hominids born with less capacity to argue would fail to participate fully in culture, which may have reduced their ability to survive and reproduce.
The notion that reasoning is for arguing fits nicely with another argument we have endorsed, which is that human thought is for sharing one's thoughts and experiences with others. For more than a century, psychology has regarded William James's famous conclusion that thinking is for doing as an unassailable truism. Yet our own research has led us to entertain a rival hypothesis, that much of thinking is for talking (see Baumeister & Masicampo Reference Baumeister and Masicampo2010). This applies particularly to conscious thought, defined as the advanced human form of cognition that differs from what most animals have.
Many investigators operationally define conscious thought as those thoughts the person can report to others. Few, however, seem to have heeded the implication that the purpose of conscious thought is precisely for enabling people to tell their thoughts to one another.
The interpersonal bases of thinking are an exciting advance and represent potentially a fundamental change in how the field understands the goals and purposes of human thought, especially conscious thought. There have been two overlapping debates about consciousness in recent decades. One is whether conscious thoughts have any causal influence on behavior. A recent survey suggests a positive answer (Baumeister et al. Reference Baumeister, Masicampo and Vohs2011). The other, more difficult question is what value is served by having thoughts be conscious. That is, could not those same thoughts influence behavior just as effectively without being conscious? It is difficult to make an evolutionary or functional case for advantages of having thoughts inside the individual mind be conscious. But it is easy to make the case for the advantages of being able to communicate thoughts with an organized group, which is what conscious thought enables.
Merely sharing thoughts is already helpful in terms of collective use of information, but M&S's focus on arguing is a huge boost and extension to this line of thinking. We wish we had thought of it! Conscious thought enables people to talk to others and thereby enables small groups to resolve differences. By talking, people can resolve conflicts, influence one another, converge on the truth (aided vitally by reasoning when there are differences), and thereby function together more harmoniously and effectively than nonhuman groups. Nonhuman animals, in contrast, have a have a relatively simple and unsophisticated language apparatus compared with humans. They resolve conflicts through aggression instead of reconciliation, dominate others instead of attempting to persuade one another, and rely on what appears true in the present environment instead of using logical reasoning to understand that things are not always as they initially seem. Thus, M&S's theory sheds light on what has made human beings such a successful species in using culture as an advanced form of social life to improve survival and reproduction.
Consistent with that emphasis and with M&S's article, we have found that logical reasoning depends on conscious thought (DeWall et al. Reference DeWall, Baumeister and Masicampo2008). These experiments showed that reasoning improved as conscious processing was engaged, and reasoning quickly deteriorated when conscious attention was preoccupied elsewhere. In contrast, logical reasoning performance was unaffected by either preoccupying or engaging (priming) the unconscious processing system.
In short, we view M&S's article as an important complement to other work emphasizing human consciousness as serving interpersonal and cultural functions. Conscious thought enables both reasoning and advanced forms of communication, including arguing. Human evolution was partly based on developing mental powers to enable group members to communicate information for group action, which is the foundation of culture. Conscious logical reasoning and interpersonal arguing are vital parts of that process and thus help to define human nature.