"Practices and skills for discoursing over reasons are uniquely human developments with a profound impact on human sociality, and our cognitive and behavioral economy. It is thus of great interest to explore why and how humans give and ask for reasons. In addition, it is increasingly recognized that an adequate understanding of such questions calls for a multi-perspectival, often dialogical, cross-fertilizing and integrative approach. Proceeding in this spirit, current research at the interface of philosophy and the sciences is already yielding interesting new data, explanations, and predictions concerning the origins, purposes, development or consequences of human discursive practices and skills. But representative overviews of this research are still missing from the literature. The current volume aims to fill this lacuna by bringing together new essays that approach the topic from integrative perspectives that promise to stimulate future research. Its contributors include established figures in both philosophy and the sciences, as well as essays from a number of younger figures with impressive research records. These essays offer resources for philosophers, cognitive scientists, developmental and comparative psychologists, and evolutionary anthropologists to further conversations into the reason-querying accounts of human cognition that have gained traction in the philosophical and scientific literature in the last few years"-- Provided by publisher.
Why and How We Give and Ask for Reasons : Perspectives from Philosophy and the Sciences