Mental Logic - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805823883 ISBN 13: 9780805823882

Publisher: Psychology Press, 1998

Synopsis

Over the past decade, the question of whether there is a mental logic has become subject to considerable debate. There have been attacks by critics who believe that all reasoning uses mental models and return attacks on mental-models theory. This controversy has invaded various journals and has created issues between mental logic and the biases-and-heuristics approach to reasoning, and the content-dependent theorists. However, despite its pertinence to current issues in cognition, few cognitive scientists really know what the mental-logic theory is, and misapprehensions are prevalent. This volume is a comprehensive presentation of the theory of mental logic and its implications for cognition and development, including the acquisition of language.

The theory offered here has three parts. Part I is the mental logic per se that contains a set of inference schemas. Part II is a reasoning program that applies the schemas in lines of reasoning, including a direct-reasoning routine and more sophisticated indirect-reasoning strategies. Part III of the theory is pragmatic, proposing that the basic meaning of each logic particle is in the inferences that are sanctioned by its inference schemas.

About this title

Review

The richness of this enterprise is a legacy befitting the important and substantial contribution of Martin Braine and David O'Brien to our understanding the human mind.
—Contemporary Psychology

Researchers interested in higher-order reasoning processes should find valuable information in this volume.
—Journal of Mathematical Psychology

About this edition

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0805823883
• ISBN 13: 9780805823882
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 490
• Editor: Braine Martin D.S., O'Brien David P.