Context

A lesson on the essential nature of context in deductive reasoning, as constructed within a conversation between a cognitive psychology researcher and a Liberian Kpelle tribal leader:


EXPERIMENTER: At one time spider went to a feast. He was told to answer this question before he could eat any food. The question is: Spider and black deer always eat together. Spider is eating. Is black deer eating?

LEADER: Were they in the bush?

EXPERIMENTER: Yes.

LEADER: They were eating together?

EXPERIMENTER: Spider and black deer always eat together. Spider is eating. Is black deer eating?

LEADER: But I was not there. How can I answer such a question?

EXPERMENTER: Can't you answer it? Even if you were not there, you can answer it.

LEADER: Ask the question again for me to hear.

EXPERMENTER: Spider and black deer always eat together. Spider is eating. Is black deer eating?

LEADER: Oh oh black dear was eating.

EXPERMENTER: Black dear was eating?

LEADER: Yes.

EXPERIMENTER: What is your reason for saying black deer was eating?

LEADER: The reason is that black deer walks about all day eating green leaves in the bush. When it rests for a while it gets up again and goes and eats in the bush.
(Cole, Gay, Glick & Sharp, 1971, P 187)



Reasoning on the basis of experience would seem to imply that one could not pursue decontextualised abstract logic too far away from the real world.

There's not just a smattering of wisdom there in terms of relevance and observation, to my mind, there's also recognition of the shared space, of a sensitivity to the deer's patterns of behaviour and the already present relationship, the dynamic, between the tribesman and the animal life.

That's cool.



Ref: HolyOak, K.J., Morrison, R.G., (2005).The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning

Cambridge University Press, pg 676