10. Reason: What Is It For?

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Introduction: A Double Enigma 1
4. I. Shaking Dogma
5. 1. Reason on Trial 15
6. 2. Psychologists’ Travails 34
7. II. Understanding Inference
8. 3. From Unconscious Inferences to Intuitions 51
9. 4. Modularity 68
10. 5. Cognitive Opportunism 76
11. 6. Metarepresentations 90
12. III. Rethinking Reason
13. 7. How We Use Reasons 109
14. 8. Could Reason Be a Module? 128
15. 9. Reasoning: Intuition and Reflection 148
16. 10. Reason: What Is It For? 175
17. IV. What Reason Can and Cannot Do
18. 11. Why Is Reasoning Biased? 205
19. 12. Quality Control: How We Evaluate Arguments 222
20. 13. The Dark Side of Reason 237
21. 14. A Reason for Everything 251
22. 15. The Bright Side of Reason 262
23. V. Reason in the Wild
24. 16. Is Human Reason Universal? 277
25. 17. Reasoning about Moral and Political Topics 299
26. 18. Solitary Geniuses? 315
27. Conclusion: In Praise of Reason after All 328
28. Notes 337
29. References 357
30. Acknowledgments 383
31. Illustration Credits 385
32. Index 387