Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Evans, J. St. B. T. (2017). Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a pocket-sized volume in Oxford's Very Short Introductions series, with seven numbered chapters, an appendix, references and a short further-reading list. Its table of contents shows a path from the history of the field, through problem solving and hypothetical thinking, to decision making and reasoning, and finally to two closing chapters that ask whether people are rational and how the mind may be organised.

Chapter 1: Introduction and history

The opening chapter places the study of thinking in its history. The publisher's description says the subject goes back to Aristotle and was among the first topics studied when psychology separated from philosophy, and that the book begins by considering the behaviourists and the Gestalt psychologists before turning to modern work.

Chapter 2: Problem solving

This chapter deals with how people solve problems. According to the publisher, a central point is that problem-solving ability depends heavily on imagination: asking the right questions and seeing a situation from a completely new perspective.

Chapter 3: Thinking hypothetically

The chapter covers thinking about possibilities. The publisher's description lists hypothetical thinking and conditionals among the topics in the modern part of the book, so this chapter is the place where "if" statements and the consideration of possible situations are examined.

Chapter 4: Decision making

Decision making is treated as its own chapter. The publisher's description says that the book covers the role of past learning, IQ and cognitive biases alongside decision making.

Chapter 5: Reasoning

The chapter on reasoning corresponds to the description's mention of deduction. It deals with how people draw conclusions from given information.

Chapter 6: Are we rational?

Here the book steps back from individual tasks to the question of what it means to call human thinking rational. The publisher links this to the observation that the same evolved processes that give people their capacity to reason also leave them open to bias and error.

Chapter 7: From dual processes to two minds

The final chapter develops the idea, flagged in the description, that there may be two different ways of thinking, arising from human evolutionary history. This links back to intuition, which the description also names among the modern topics.

Appendix, references and further reading

The appendix follows Chapter 7, and the reference list and further-reading section close the book. These are useful as starting points for readers who want to move beyond the survey.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: History, problem solving and hypothetical thinking

• Behaviourist and Gestalt approaches: the two early schools with which the book begins its account of how thinking has been studied.
• Problem solving and imagination: solving problems depends on asking the right questions and being able to take a new perspective.
• Hypothetical thinking and conditionals: thinking about possible states of affairs and reasoning with "if" statements.

Chapters 4–5: Decision making and reasoning

• Decision making: how people choose, studied alongside the role of past learning.
• Deduction: drawing conclusions that follow from given premises.
• Cognitive biases: systematic departures from good reasoning that the description ties to evolved thinking processes.

Chapters 6–7: Rationality and dual processes

• Rationality: the question of by what standard human thinking can be called rational.
• Intuition: fast, untaught judgement, named in the description among the modern topics.
• Two ways of thinking: the proposal that human thought involves two different kinds of process, developed in the final chapter.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Short and sequenced. Seven chapters in roughly 130 pages (the index starts on page 131) make it feasible to read in a few sittings, and the order moves from history to specific tasks to broad questions about rationality.
• Written by a specialist. The author is an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology who has worked on thinking and reasoning throughout his career and helped found the journal Thinking & Reasoning; his earlier books include Hypothetical Thinking and Thinking Twice. The book's closing argument about two minds belongs to this research programme.
• Wide coverage for its size. The contents take in problem solving, hypothetical thinking, decision making, reasoning, rationality and dual processes, which is a broader map of the field than a book on decision biases alone.
• Pointers onward. The book ends with an appendix, a reference list and a separate further-reading section.

Limitations

• Compression. Seven chapters in about 120 pages of text cannot develop any single topic in depth; readers who want detail on judgement under uncertainty will need a dedicated text.
• A single viewpoint at the end. The final chapter presents a dual-process view as the book's culminating idea; readers should treat it as one prominent account and check it against other sources.
• No exercises indicated. The contents and description show no problem sets or study questions, so the book gives little structured practice.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the judgment and decision-making course, this is the shortest and broadest starting point. It sits before the longer treatments: Hastie and Dawes's Rational Choice in an Uncertain World is an introduction to judgement and decision making that compares actual judgement with rational standards, and Baron's Thinking and Deciding is a comprehensive text organised around normative, descriptive and prescriptive models. Both cover decision research in more depth than a very short introduction can.

Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is a well-known account of two systems of thought and of cognitive biases, and Evans's last chapter makes a natural lead-in to it. Bazerman and Moore's Judgment in Managerial Decision Making applies the heuristics-and-biases tradition to organisations, Nudge turns to the design of choices, and Gigerenzer, Todd and the ABC Research Group's Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart is a research monograph that argues for fast and frugal heuristics.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes no background in psychology, statistics or logic. It suits first-year students, readers from philosophy or economics, and anyone who wants an orientation before a course on judgement and decision making.

A practical plan:

• Read straight through. The chapters build in order and the book is short enough to finish in a few sittings.
• Core for decision-making courses: Chapters 4, 6 and 7, with Chapter 5 for the link to logical reasoning.
• Optional for a decision-focused reader: Chapters 2 and 3 on problem solving and hypothetical thinking, which broaden the picture but are less central to decision research.
• Afterwards: use the further-reading section to choose a longer text from the course list, and return to Chapter 7 when starting a book that makes use of dual-process ideas.