Hugo Mercier Books
Hugo Mercier is a French cognitive scientist known for his research on reasoning, communication, and social cognition. He is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and co-author of 'The Enigma of Reason'.
Known for: Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe, The Enigma of Reason
Books by Hugo Mercier
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe
In this book, cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier challenges the common belief that humans are gullible and easily deceived. Drawing on research in psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary theory, Merc...
The Enigma of Reason
Why are human beings so intelligent in some situations and so irrational in others? In The Enigma of Reason, cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber tackle that puzzle with a bold and deeply...
Key Insights from Hugo Mercier
The Evolutionary Basis of Trust
Trust is not a naive leap of faith; it’s an outcome of millions of years of social evolution. As humans moved from solitary survival toward cooperative living, trust became the cornerstone of group success. But here’s the crucial insight: evolution designed trust not as blind acceptance but as calib...
From Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe
Mechanisms of Belief Formation
Belief isn’t an on-off switch activated by exposure to a statement. When we encounter new information, our cognitive system immediately begins asking: Who said it? Why? Does it fit with what I already know? Our minds are not empty vessels but evaluators, comparing incoming data with stored knowledge...
From Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe
Reason Was Never Purely Private
One of the book’s most provocative claims is that we misunderstand reason when we imagine it as a solitary truth-seeking engine. For centuries, philosophers often treated reason as the defining faculty of the individual mind: the inner guide that helps us think clearly, overcome impulse, and arrive ...
From The Enigma of Reason
Why Individual Reasoning Often Misfires
A surprising amount of evidence suggests that people are not especially good at reasoning in the abstract. In experiments involving logic, probability, or evidence evaluation, participants regularly make mistakes. They ignore base rates, misunderstand conditional statements, and reach conclusions th...
From The Enigma of Reason
The Argumentative Theory Changes Everything
The heart of the book is the argumentative theory of reasoning: reason evolved primarily to devise and evaluate arguments. This idea sounds narrow at first, but it has far-reaching consequences. It means that many features of human thought that appear defective under the traditional model may actual...
From The Enigma of Reason
Confirmation Bias Has a Social Logic
Confirmation bias is usually presented as one of the mind’s most embarrassing flaws: we seek evidence that supports what we already believe and neglect evidence that contradicts it. Mercier and Sperber do not deny the phenomenon. What they challenge is the assumption that it is simply a malfunction....
From The Enigma of Reason
About Hugo Mercier
Hugo Mercier is a French cognitive scientist known for his research on reasoning, communication, and social cognition. He is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and co-author of 'The Enigma of Reason'. His work focuses on how humans evaluate information and make decisions in social cont...
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Hugo Mercier is a French cognitive scientist known for his research on reasoning, communication, and social cognition. He is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and co-author of 'The Enigma of Reason'. His work focuses on how humans evaluate information and make decisions in social cont...
Hugo Mercier is a French cognitive scientist known for his research on reasoning, communication, and social cognition. He is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and co-author of 'The Enigma of Reason'. His work focuses on how humans evaluate information and make decisions in social contexts.
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Hugo Mercier is a French cognitive scientist known for his research on reasoning, communication, and social cognition. He is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and co-author of 'The Enigma of Reason'.
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