Hugo Mercier is a prominent cognitive scientist and researcher known for his groundbreaking work in the fields of psychology and philosophy. Mercier developed a passion for understanding the intricacies of human thought and reasoning from an early age.

Most of his work so far has focused on the function and workings of reasoning. According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, the function of reasoning is argumentative: to find and evaluate arguments so as to convince others and only be convinced when it is appropriate. Accordingly, reasoning works well as an argumentative device, but quite poorly otherwise.