Hi Maarten. I first came across this topic with a 2017 New Yorker article by Elizabeth Kolbert called "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds." In short, she's saying that discussion, logic, reasoning are not so much tools for finding facts or "the truth" as they are tools that create or define social groups... "are you with us or against us?" rather than "the truth will set you free!" So rather than labelling us Homo sapiens we should be Homo socialis.
Yeah, I know that article, it's nice. Some scholats, such as Dan Sperber have even suggested that communication and argumentation evolved not for the benefits of providing information, but for the benefits to testifiers of manipulating the beliefs of other agents. That is, humans developed an ability to collect reasons mainly for the purpose of persuading others to support predetermined conclusions.
Good to hear from you again.
Hi Maarten. I first came across this topic with a 2017 New Yorker article by Elizabeth Kolbert called "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds." In short, she's saying that discussion, logic, reasoning are not so much tools for finding facts or "the truth" as they are tools that create or define social groups... "are you with us or against us?" rather than "the truth will set you free!" So rather than labelling us Homo sapiens we should be Homo socialis.
Yeah, I know that article, it's nice. Some scholats, such as Dan Sperber have even suggested that communication and argumentation evolved not for the benefits of providing information, but for the benefits to testifiers of manipulating the beliefs of other agents. That is, humans developed an ability to collect reasons mainly for the purpose of persuading others to support predetermined conclusions.