The Ontology of Rationality

Now we stand at the starting line for inquiry into just what kind of a “thing” is rationality, if it is a “thing,” whether there can be an optimal such thing, and how to determine whether one such thing can be the best one. Is it reasoning or the product of reason? Is it a contrivance, with a millennial history of thousands of varieties? Or is it a natural development among human groups, abetted by human witnesses of its arising and potential for species or general use, with deliberate design and deployment? This chapter now sets forth the notion of best theory of rationality, with a systematic way to determine which way leads to a theory with the best explanatory priority over others.