This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 1st June 2017
Many of us believe our capacity to reason helps us to acquire knowledge and make better decisions - but what if it has an entirely different purpose?
Cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier and his colleague Dan Sperber have made waves with the surprising results of years of research – that our power to reason has nothing to do with accuracy or truth-seeking. Mercier visits the RSA to present their astounding thesis: that the essential function of reason is not solitary but social - it exists to help us convince other people or groups of our arguments.
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/05/a-new-theory-of-human-understanding