Abstract: Theorists of rationality generally assume that one or another version of the following slogan is correct: Rationality promotes success. This slogan has often been understood in a way that might provide for a reductive explanation of the demands of rationality by appeal to some independently intelligible notion of success: being rational is just having whatever property it is that promotes success. In response to the apparent failures of this reductive effort, the slogan has also been understood in a way that might provide for a reductive explanation of the notion of success by appeal to some independently intelligible notion of the demands of rationality: having success is just having whatever property it is that is promoted by being rational. In this paper, I argue that neither of these reductive efforts can succeed, and then propose a different way of understanding the relation between rationality and success.
