The Psychology of Proof: Deductive Reasoning in Human Thinking

Rating:
Summary: The Other/Better Half
Review: I must say that I tend to like Rips' side of this better than Johnson-Laird's. His experiments were more thorough and better organized, but they fall to the same critique I gave J-L: they were designed to get the results they got. I preferred Rips' side of things even before reading the book, which is why I think it may not be possible to design better experiments--I've yet to meet anyone familiar with the debate who didn't already, before familiarizing himself with the debate, have an entrenched opinion on the matter. But this is no reason not to read up on the subject. This is a central book in the cognitive sciences, is very well done, and makes for exciting, mind-stimulating reading. But there is plenty of work to be done on the topic, and neither J-L nor Rips have done it. Given human nature, such may not be possible.

Rating:
Summary: The Other/Better Half
Review: I must say that I tend to like Rips' side of this better than Johnson-Laird's. His experiments were more thorough and better organized, but they fall to the same critique I gave J-L: they were designed to get the results they got. I preferred Rips' side of things even before reading the book, which is why I think it may not be possible to design better experiments--I've yet to meet anyone familiar with the debate who didn't already, before familiarizing himself with the debate, have an entrenched opinion on the matter. But this is no reason not to read up on the subject. This is a central book in the cognitive sciences, is very well done, and makes for exciting, mind-stimulating reading. But there is plenty of work to be done on the topic, and neither J-L nor Rips have done it. Given human nature, such may not be possible.