New Preface for Reissue. Prologue. Acknowledgements. 1. The Logic of Deduction 2. The Cognitive Science of Deduction 3. Reasoning with Propositions 4. Conditionals 5. Reasoning about Relations 6. One Quantifier at a Time: The Psychology of Syllogisms 7. Many Quantifiers: Reasoning with Multiple Quantification 8. Meta-deduction 9. Deduction, Non-monotonic Reasoning, and Parsimonious Conclusions: How to Write and Reasoning Program 10. Beyond Deduction: Thinking, Rationality, and Models. References. Author Index. Subject Index.
Biography
Phil Johnson-Laird is emeritus Stuart professor of psychology at Princeton University after earlier academic positions in England. Ruth Byrne and his collaboration began in 1986 at the MRC’s psychological unit in Cambridge and it led to Deduction. Phil continues to do research in collaborations with Ruth and other friends into reasoning, creativity, emotions, and psychological illnesses. He has published over a dozen books and several hundred papers. This research has been recognized in elections to learned societies in Britain (FRS, FBA) and America (NAS, APS), in honorary degrees, and in the award of the Fyssen prize for studies in rationality.
Ruth Byrne is the Professor of Cognitive Science at Trinity College Dublin. Her research on reasoning and imaginative thought has been published in over 150 papers and her former books include The Rational Imagination (2005). She is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society. She has been awarded the Royal Irish Academy’s Gold Medal, and the European Society for Cognitive Psychology’s Broadbent Prize.
Reviews for the original edition:
‘This is an extremely good book. It is well argued and well written…. The organisation is excellent.’ – Stuart Sutherland, Sussex University
‘This book provides a powerful theoretical and empirical account of the mental model theory of deductive reasoning…. It should have a strong and enduring influence in the area, and certainly should be required reading for any postgraduate student (and in fact anybody) working on deduction or related topics.’ – Paul Pollard, Lancashire Polytechnic
‘One cannot help but be impressed by the sheer energy that has been devoted to this work. In writing this book, the authors can also, I believe, claim to have provided by far the most detailed and comprehensive psychological theory of deduction that has been devised to date.’ – Jonathan St. B. T. Evans, Polytechnic South West
