. They all contribute to a field of study popularised in recent times by authors like Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt – the study of why humans think and behave in an unreasoned, or downright stupid, fashion.
A hasty conclusion which might be drawn from this is that truth is merely an expression of power; that reasoning is a game of manipulation. This is what Vladimir Putin and his agents of disinformation would have you believe. It’s what underpins the authoritarian argument that people are too stupid to be given the vote.
The argumentative theory helps to explain why people can be so stubborn and proud in discussions. Importantly, it is only a theory and it doesn’t imply that all reasoning is, or should be, competitive. What it does suggest, however, is that if you want to get someone like Boris Johnson on side let him think he has won.A product of the unwarranted high regard in which we tend to hold ourselves .