Non-monotonic reasoning from an evolution-theoretic perspective

ontic, logical and cognitive foundations

Gerhard Schurz

pp. 37-51

in: Gerhard Schurz, Hannes Leitgeb (eds), Non-monotonic and uncertain reasoning in cognition, Synthese 146, 2005.

Abstract

In the first part I argue that normic laws are the phenomenological laws of evolutionary systems. If this is true, then intuitive human reasoning should be fit in reasoning from normic laws. In the second part I show that system P is a tool for reasoning with normic laws which satisfies two important evolutionary standards: it is probabilistically reliable, and it has rules of low complexity. In the third part I finally report results of an experimental study which demonstrate that intuitive human reasoning is in well accord with basic argument patterns of system P.