The enduring enigma of reason

<jats:p>In <jats:italic>The Enigma of Reason</jats:italic>, Mercier and Sperber (M&amp;S) present and defend their interactionist account of reason. In this piece, I discuss briefly the points of agreement between M&amp;S and myself and, more extensively, the points of disagreement, most of which pertain to details of the evolutionary components of their account. I discuss in particular the purported modular nature of reason; their account of myside bias as an optimum/adaptation; and the claim that reason thus construed must be an individual‐level and not a group‐level adaptation. In the final section, I offer brief considerations on an alternative account of reasoning, where the focus is on how sociocultural environments may tune the social production and evaluation of arguments.</jats:p>