![]() ![]() The book can get surprisingly technical, given that it’s targeted at a general audience. Though its earliest and latest chapters veer into polemic, Rationality is mostly intended to be something of a how-to manual for rational thinking. Unlike those pro-reason tomes, Pinker’s latest is less interested in making the case for “making sense” and instead functions as an introduction to logic, statistical inference and probability theory. In a way, Rationality is part three of a trilogy that includes The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) and Enlightenment Now (2018). ![]() Though American culture has long made room for both (the Moon landing and Woodstock were separated by a few weeks in the summer of 1969), Pinker argues our irrational Dionysian tendencies have been ascendant, and to the detriment of Apollonian clear-headed logic. And in The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche popularized this ongoing tension as a duel between two Greek gods: Apollo (who appeals to rational thinking and order) and Dionysus (who represents emotion and chaos). How can we make sense of making sense – and its opposite?” How, indeed? The question of rationality versus the passions has been debated since the dawn of philosophy. “ an era blessed with unprecedented resources for reasoning,” he writes in the book’s preface, “the public sphere is infested with fake news, quack cures, conspiracy theories and ‘post-truth’ rhetoric. The central thesis of Steven Pinker’s Rationality is undeniable. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |