Aristotle embeds humans in the natural order, while also affirming human specialness. We differ much more from non-humans than they do from each other, and the difference lies in our cognitive capacities. Humans understand, deliberate, deduce … the list goes on. These are not brute facts, but obtain in virtue of some feature of the human soul. What soul-feature, then, explains our cognitive specialness? Call it ‘rationality’. Whatever it turns out to be, very likely it will not be what makes humans the best at this or that. Aristotle makes plenty of those claims as well. Humans are the smartest (phronimōtatoi), the most political, the most imitative.1 Such comparisons presuppose something shared, a dimension along which we can make comparisons without homonymy or abuse of language.2 Rationality might explain some human preeminence, but no preeminent-making feature will thereby be the rational-making feature. Our exquisite sense of touch, for instance, is one reason we are the smartest animal.3 Touch is, however, the animal-making feature, not the rational-making one.