Abstract

Reasoning and rationality are, of course, correlative notions, and this chapter pursues the question of the forms of inference available at the nonlinguistic level. This chapter provides the psychological explanation by exploring how the notion of practical reasoning might be applied at the nonlinguistic level. It also explores the idea that practical reasoning should be understood in decision-theorem terms. The decision-theoretic model is not required for the explanation of behaviors that are rational either in the level 1 or the level 2 sense. Certain forms of practical reasoning, however, are available at the nonlinguistic level. The chapter also shows how it is possible to identity at the nonlinguistic level certain very basic forms of protological thinking. These basic forms of protological thinking include what is termed as protonegation and protoconditional reasoning.