Reason Seen More As a Weapon Than a Path To Truth

mdsolar writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we'll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena."

Comments

Re:This seems to be a great over-simplification.

[flyingsquid]

Also there are two types of debate - the academic debate where people knowledgable in the field evaluate arguments and the sort of debate that two politicians have on TV.

Philosophy and rhetoric, as the Greeks would have argued. There's rational discourse appealing to facts and sound logic, and irrational discourse appealing to emotions and logic, sound and otherwise. An amazing example of this is the recent John Stewart appearance on the O'Reilly Factor (really, it happened and the universe did not explode). O'Reilly blusters, argues, pontificates loudly, professes outrage, sets up straw men; Stewart calmly cites precedents and takes apart O'Reily's arguments piece by piece. It's hard to really say who won, they're playing such different games. Rhetorically O'Reilly is sort of like a Canadian brutally clubbing a helpless baby harp seal, but logically Stewart is like King Arthur, taking apart the Black Knight piece by piece.

As for these social scientists, I don't know if I buy their explanation for why rationality evolved but I would agree with these guys about one thing: humans aren't evolved to assess problems rationally. The stuff they teach us in school about the Scientific Method, how we gather evidence, formulate hypotheses and then test them... it's bullshit. The process works; it's amazingly powerful. But in practice that's the opposite of how humans typically arrive at the answer. Humans start with an answer they've arrived at through some quasi-rational means and then collect facts and generate rational arguments to support the answer they've already decided on. Even scientists, most of them, don't really think according to the scientific method, most of the time. I mean, these social scientists, did they actually conduct any science; did they actually test an hypothesis? From the Times article doesn't sound like these "scientists" made any testable predictions or gathered any data, they just started with a thesis ("human rationality evolved to win arguments") and then marshalled evidence and arguments in favor of it. They're debating, not discovering. If that's not an argument against rationality, I don't know what is.

"For centuries"?

[Dr. Manhattan]

"Surely you have observed how the first taste of argument provokes lads to misuse it as a kind of sport, that is, they use it competitively. Having been proven wrong in argument, they must go on to prove others wrong. They are like puppies, welcoming all comers to pull and tear at words with them".

(Plato's Republic, Book VII 539b)

How new is this notion again?