In a world where natural selection has shaped adaptations of astonishing ingenuity, what is the scope and unique power of rational thinking?

In this short but wide-ranging book, philosopher Ronald de Sousa looks at the twin set of issues surrounding the power of natural selection to mimic rational design, and rational thinking as itself a product of natural selection.

While we commonly deem ourselves superior to other species, the logic of natural selection should not lead us to expect that nature does everything for the best. Similarly, rational action does not always promote the...

The word "truth" retains, in common use, traces of origins that link it to trust, truth, and truce, connoting ideas of fidelity, loyalty, and authenticity. The word has become, in contemporary philosophy, encased in a web of technicalities, but we know that a true image is a faithful portrait; a true friend a loyal one. In a novel or a poem, too, we have a feel for what is emotionally true, though we are not concerned with the actuality of events and characters depicted. To have emotions is to care about certain things: we can wonder whether those things are really worth caring about. We can...

In a world where natural selection has shaped adaptations of astonishing ingenuity, what is the scope and unique power of rational thinking?

In this short but wide-ranging book, philosopher Ronald de Sousa looks at the twin set of issues surrounding the power of natural selection to mimic rational design, and rational thinking as itself a product of natural selection.

While we commonly deem ourselves superior to other species, the logic of natural selection should not lead us to expect that nature does everything for the best. Similarly, rational action does not always promote the...