Logical Reasoning and Expertise: Extolling the Virtues of Connectionist Account of Enthymemes

Abstract

Cognitive scientists used to deem reasoning either as a higher cognitive process based on the manipulation of abstract rules or as a higher cognitive process that is stochastic rather than involving abstract rules. I maintain that these different perspectives are closely intertwined with a theoretical and methodological endorsement of either cognitivism or connectionism. Cognitivism and connectionism represent two prevailing and opposed paradigms in cognitive science. I aim to extoll the virtues of connectionist models of enthymematic reasoning by the following means: (1) via the phenomenon of creative enthymeme, viz. the inference where one cannot even articulate the missing premise, I introduce a connectionist mechanism of pattern recognition as underlying expertise; (2) via Gestalt switch or Gestalt click, I demonstrate how differences in pattern recognition of an expert and a novice can be construed as qualitatively different, and not merely a matter of faster reasoning.