Can human rationality be defended a priori?
From Behavior and Philosophy 28, 67-81 (2000)
ABSTRACT: In this paper, I develop two criticisms of L. Jonathan Cohen's influential a priori argument that experimental findings in psychology could never prove human reasoning to be systematically flawed. The first is that the argument depends crucially on the concept of a normal human but that no such concept suitable for Cohen's purposes is available. The second is that even if his argument were granted, his thesis of an unimpeachable human capacity for reasoning does not constitute a defense of human reasoning, but rather amounts to the claim that we cannot make any meaningful evaluative claims about human reasoning whatsoever.