Ragione, razionalità e credenze. Una prospettiva storico-culturale

We propose to define human rationality as the capacity to semantically use auxiliary methods of thought. We study the positioning of this conception in the social sciences and its significance for the understanding of beliefs. This definition is in opposition to approaches inspired by naturalism, in which tools of thought take on the role of predefined programs, or schemes of actions, and in which a subject’s consciousness only intervenes as an interface with reality. From a logical point of view, the explanation of reasoning as the manipulation of mental objects in the consciousness accounts for the fundamental continuity between modern and primitive reason, because it is the nature of the tools of thought that explains their differences. Moreover, this approach also accounts for the formation of beliefs, because the critical mind only develops when there is the possibility of theorizing about beliefs or values, that is, of consciously attaining a higher level of thought. Finally, the semiotic nature of the fundaments of human rationality explains that the desire for meaning is a human aspiration that is just as fundamental as the need to act.