Description: The social practices and skills for giving, assessing, and responding to reasons play a key role in the constitution of uniquely human conceptual, epistemic, and deliberative powers. Although theorists in the past have articulated intriguing views on this topic, current research opens up new vistas that promise a deeper understanding of the way reason-seeking or -querying activities shape and scaffold the operations of human cognition. This volume offers resources for philosophers, cognitive scientists, developmental and comparative psychologists, and evolutionary anthropologists to continue this conversation.
Review Quotes: "Interpersonal discourse might be conceived, not as the expression of, but as the origin of individual reasoning. Most of the papers in this collection defend some aspect of this conception. The remainder push back against the more extreme forms. The volume breaks new ground in this fundamental debate." -- Christopher Gauker, University of Salzburg
"This collection, written by both major players and new voices and from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, sheds important new light on the individual and social, dialogical/discursive practices involved in giving and asking for reasons. Philosophical, logical, psychological, and evolutionary analyses of the development of human rational capacities and the cost/benefit trade-offs involved in their use offer important new interdisciplinary insights. The social/dialogical origins and functions and evolutionary payoffs of reasoning practices loom large, as does the relationship between the development of the rational capacities employed in reasoning and the normative standing of the reasons so employed. The papers advance contemporary discussions in several challenging directions. Highly recommended!" -- Harvey Siegel, University of Miami