On the Interplay Between Interpretation and Reasoning in Compelling Fallacies

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Hauptverfasser: Léo Picat, Salvador Mascarenhas
Format: Artículo Open Access
Veröffentlicht: Wiley 2024
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author Léo Picat
Salvador Mascarenhas
author_facet Léo Picat
Salvador Mascarenhas
Léo Picat
Salvador Mascarenhas
collection Wiley Open Access
contents On the Interplay Between Interpretation and Reasoning in Compelling Fallacies Léo Picat Salvador Mascarenhas Cognitive Science Abstract We investigate the articulation between domain‐general reasoning and interpretive processes in failures of deductive reasoning. We focus on illusory inferences from disjunction‐like elements, a broad class of deductive fallacies studied in some detail over the past 15 years. These fallacies have received accounts grounded in reasoning processes, holding that human reasoning diverges from normative standards. A subset of these fallacies, however, can be analyzed differently: human reasoning is not to blame, instead the premises were interpreted in a nonobvious, yet perfectly predictable and reasonable way. Once we consider these interpretations, the apparent fallacious conclusion is no mistake at all. We give a two‐factor account of these fallacies that incorporates both reasoning‐based elements and interpretive elements, showing that they are not in real competition. We present novel experimental evidence in favor of our theory. Cognitive load such as induced by a dual‐task design is known to hinder the interpretive mechanisms at the core of interpretation‐based accounts of the fallacies of interest. In the first experiment of its kind using this paradigm with an inferential task instead of a simpler truth‐value‐judgment task, we found that the manipulation affected more strongly those illusions where our theory predicts that interpretive processes are at play. We conclude that the best way forward for the field to investigate the elusive line between reasoning and interpretation requires combining theories and methodologies from linguistic semantics and the psychology of reasoning. 10.1111/cogs.70021 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
doi_str_mv 10.1111/cogs.70021
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license_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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spellingShingle On the Interplay Between Interpretation and Reasoning in Compelling Fallacies
Léo Picat
Salvador Mascarenhas
Cognitive Science
On the Interplay Between Interpretation and Reasoning in Compelling Fallacies Léo Picat Salvador Mascarenhas Cognitive Science Abstract We investigate the articulation between domain‐general reasoning and interpretive processes in failures of deductive reasoning. We focus on illusory inferences from disjunction‐like elements, a broad class of deductive fallacies studied in some detail over the past 15 years. These fallacies have received accounts grounded in reasoning processes, holding that human reasoning diverges from normative standards. A subset of these fallacies, however, can be analyzed differently: human reasoning is not to blame, instead the premises were interpreted in a nonobvious, yet perfectly predictable and reasonable way. Once we consider these interpretations, the apparent fallacious conclusion is no mistake at all. We give a two‐factor account of these fallacies that incorporates both reasoning‐based elements and interpretive elements, showing that they are not in real competition. We present novel experimental evidence in favor of our theory. Cognitive load such as induced by a dual‐task design is known to hinder the interpretive mechanisms at the core of interpretation‐based accounts of the fallacies of interest. In the first experiment of its kind using this paradigm with an inferential task instead of a simpler truth‐value‐judgment task, we found that the manipulation affected more strongly those illusions where our theory predicts that interpretive processes are at play. We conclude that the best way forward for the field to investigate the elusive line between reasoning and interpretation requires combining theories and methodologies from linguistic semantics and the psychology of reasoning. 10.1111/cogs.70021 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
title On the Interplay Between Interpretation and Reasoning in Compelling Fallacies
topic Cognitive Science
url https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.70021