THE SOCIAL STRUCTURING OF REASONING IN DEVELOPMENT NICHES

Even though some theories of reasoning recognize the importance of accounting for its social dimensions, they have problems integrating its evolutionary past. Mercier and Sperber, for instance, have argued for the need to incorporate an evolutionary account of cognition into a theory of reasoning. Still, the underlying cognitive individualism in their theory seriously impairs incorporating the narrative structure of reasoning. We claim that the source of the problem is an underlying adaptationist model of evolution. We suggest that an evolutionary model that takes developmental niches as its main evolutionary unit provides a better way of understanding reasoning. Such an account views reasoning as a bio-social achievement, mainly structured in (proto)narratives answering to norms implicit in practices.