A theory of bouletic reasoning

No present theory explains or models the inferences people draw about the real world when reasoning about “bouletic” relations, i.e., predicates that express desires, such as want in Lee wants an espresso. Linguistic accounts of such bouletic relations define them in terms of their relation to a desirer’s beliefs, and how its complement is deemed to be desirable (cf. Heim, 1992; Villalta, 2008; Rubinstein 2012). In contrast, we describe a new model-based theory (cf. Johnson-Laird, 2006; Khemlani, Byrne, & Johnson-Laird, 2018) that posits that such predicates are fundamentally counterfactual in nature. In particular, X wants P should imply that P is not the case, because you cannot want what is already true. The theory makes empirical predictions about how people assess the consistency of bouletic relations as well as how they use such relations to eliminate disjunctive possibilities. Two experiments tested and validated the theory’s central predictions. We assess the theory in light of alternative accounts of human reasoning.

当前尚无理论能够解释或构建人们在对“bouletic”关系进行推理时所形成的关于现实世界的推论，即表达欲望的谓词，如‘Lee 想要一杯浓缩咖啡’中的‘想要’。此类bouletic关系的语言描述通常基于其与欲望者信念的关系，以及其补集被认为是有吸引力的（参见Heim, 1992；Villalta, 2008；Rubinstein 2012）。相比之下，我们描述了一种新的基于模型的理论（参见Johnson-Laird, 2006；Khemlani, Byrne, & Johnson-Laird, 2018），该理论认为此类谓词本质上具有反事实的性质。具体而言，'X 想要 P' 应该意味着 P 不是一个既定的事实，因为你不可能对已经发生的事情抱有欲望。该理论对人们评估bouletic关系的一致性以及他们如何利用此类关系消除析取可能性做出了经验预测。两项实验对理论的中心预测进行了测试和验证。我们从人类推理的替代性解释的角度评估了该理论。