ABSTRACT
The study of reasoning, unlike what was once said about psychology as a discipline, has both a long past and a long history. Indeed, it would not be too far-fetched to claim that people have been studying and reporting on their reasoning abilities for as long as they have been studying anything. So the shadow cast by this history is probably longer than in any other field of the cognitive sciences: modern authors still regularly appeal to the writings of their ancient philosophical forebears, most notably Aristotle, who lived over 2300 years ago. Even within the confines of contemporary empirical psychology, a long line can be traced back: the earliest such reference in this book is a near century old, from 1908.
