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.
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