ISBN Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction English

Our extraordinary capacity to reason and solve problems sets us aside from other animals but our evolved thinking processes also leave us susceptibile to bias and error. The study of thinking and reasoning goes back to Aristotle and was one of the first topics to be studied when psychology separated from philosophy. In this Very Short Introduction Jonathan Evans explores cognitive psychological approaches to understanding the nature of thinking and reasoning problem solving and decision making. He shows how our problem solving capabilities are hugely dependent on also having the imagination to ask the right questions and the ability to see things from a completely new perspective. Beginning by considering the approaches of the behaviourists and the Gestalt psychologists he moves on to modern explorations of thinking including hypothetical thinking conditionals deduction rationality and intuition. Covering the role of past learning IQ and cognitive biases Evans also discusses the idea that there may be two different ways of thinking arising from our evolutionary history. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.