If arguments had no meaning but to argue other people into things, if they were being subject only to neutral selection or genetic drift or mere conformism, there really wouldn’t be any reason for “the kind of arguments humans can be swayed by” to work to build a spaceship. We’d just end up with some arbitrary set of rules fixed in place.
I agree with this. My position is not that explicit reasoning is arbitrary, but that it developed via an adversarial process where arguers would try to convince listeners of things, and then listeners would try to distinguish between more and less correct arguments. This is in contrast with theories of reason which focus on the helpfulness of reason in allowing individuals to discover the truth by themselves, or theories which focus on its use in collaboration.
Here’s how Sperber and Mercier describe their argument:
Reason is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.
I can see how my summary might give a misleading impression; I’ll add an edit to clarify. Does this resolve the disagreement?
I agree with this. My position is not that explicit reasoning is arbitrary, but that it developed via an adversarial process where arguers would try to convince listeners of things, and then listeners would try to distinguish between more and less correct arguments. This is in contrast with theories of reason which focus on the helpfulness of reason in allowing individuals to discover the truth by themselves, or theories which focus on its use in collaboration.
Here’s how Sperber and Mercier describe their argument:
I can see how my summary might give a misleading impression; I’ll add an edit to clarify. Does this resolve the disagreement?