Reasoning: A Social Picture

Anthony Simon Laden's Reasoning: A Social Picture investigates how we reason with each other in conversation about what to do, value, believe, or feel. I know of no other book that brings this neglected topic so squarely into focus and explicates it so thoroughly. Laden does not think of reasoning together as merely an understudied topic of interest, however; he thinks that “reasoning is fundamentally something we do together” (16). Fully appreciating this fact, Laden argues, requires us to abandon a set of assumptions about reasons and reasoning that he calls the “standard picture.” Thus Reasoning pursues two distinct projects. The first is to investigate the nature and norms of the activity of reasoning together in conversation. The second is to argue that the “standard picture” is inadequate and ought to be replaced by a theory of reasoning that is social from start to finish. In my opinion, the book...