A review of

Rationality

What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

Steven Pinker • Viking • 2021

The review below was first published in the getAbstract Journal on 8 feb 2023.
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Think! (Slowly)

by David Meyer

Harvard professor Steven Pinker teases out another one-sentence idea into a compelling, immersing and revealing look at the power – when people remember to apply it – of rational thought.

Bestseller and Harvard professor Steven Pinker is one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. He addresses the flaws in human thinking and offers practical remedies. Pinker points out that pestilence, starvation, slavery and violent death have declined enormously because of humans’ ability to reason.

Despair

Fake news, conspiracy theories, climate-change denial, rejection of vaccinations and belief in ghosts and extrasensory perception (ESP) are only a few of the many pitfalls Pinker cites as impediments to rational thinking. Even so, under normal circumstances, he insists, most people apply logic and reasoning fairly well.

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Rationality

What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

Think! (Slowly)

Despair

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