ABSTRACT
After briefly summarizing the remaining eight chapters of the book, this opening chapter introduces its major concepts and themes. First, it considers the nature of reasoning, especially in relation to rationality, including the nature of rational agency and its relation to reasons and persons. It then turns to cognitive and developmental psychology, including research and theoretical conceptions concerning the reasoning, rationality, and development of individuals. Finally, this individualist account is supplemented by social considerations of argumentation and democracy that extend and enrich standard cognitive and developmental accounts of reasoning and rationality.
