Introduction: Local or Universal Principles of Reasoning?

In the past, philosophers used to put infants and children on the opposite side from science in the spectrum of cognitive rationality. Their supposed cognitive immaturity did not allow them to approach the ideal image of rational beings. Two psychologists, Gopnik and Meltzoff (1997), declared, at the end of the introduction to their book: “Ultimately, our reason for watching and talking to children is the same as Socrates'. The most central questions in cognitive science are questions that only they can answer” (p. 9).