Abstract

The purpose of the book is to reveal through biography, not philosophy, the essence of reasonableness. The author’s definition of reasonableness, while not excluding intelligence and learning, is “a settled disposition to guide one’s belief and conduct by the evidence. It is a bent of the will to order one’s thoughts by the relevant facts, to order one’s practice in the light of the values, to make reflective judgments the compass of one’s belief and action”.