Dan Sperber

Dan Sperber works across philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, psychology and the cognitive study of reasoning. With linguist Deirdre Wilson, he wrote Relevance: Communication and Cognition, first published in 1986 and revised for a second edition in 1995. Their relevance theory describes communication as an inferential process shaped by expectations about worthwhile cognitive effects, not simply as the encoding and decoding of messages. Further books by Sperber include Explaining Culture and Rethinking Symbolism. He later collaborated with Hugo Mercier on The Enigma of Reason and with Wilson again on Meaning and Relevance. His institutional work has included research at Institut Jean Nicod in Paris and teaching in philosophy and cognitive science at Central European University.