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Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:21 am
by Veritas Aequitas
Anyone read Steven Pinker's latest book?
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.
- Can reading a book make you more rational?
Can it help you understand why there is so much irrationality in the world?
These are the goals of Rationality, Steven Pinker’s follow-up to Enlightenment Now.
In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and at the same time appears to be losing its mind.
How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?
Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species — cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and discovered the benchmarks for rationality itself.
Instead, he explains that we think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning our best thinkers have discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others.
These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book—until now.
Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity, and uplifting mythology by individuals can add up to crippling irrationality in a society.
Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth. Rationality matters.
It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress.
Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire, and empower.
Views
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:17 pm
by RCSaunders
That is the
oxymoronic notion behind 99% of all irrationality. There is no such thing as, "collective reason." Knowledge, choice, and reason are only possible to individual human beingsd. Minds exist, one to an individual.
Pinker is an erudite idiot, a believer and promoter of evolutionary psychology, describing the mind as a computer. His terrible understanding of language (totally devoid any rational epistemology) is very dangerous, especially to understanding how children learn.
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:56 pm
by Impenitent
I'm sure this has been asked, but if Pinker was embarrassed would he turn Redder?
-Imp
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 4:50 pm
by promethean75
This fuckin guy.
*rolls eyes*
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:58 am
by Veritas Aequitas
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:17 pm
That is the
oxymoronic notion behind 99% of all irrationality. There is no such thing as, "collective reason." Knowledge, choice, and reason are only possible to individual human beingsd. Minds exist, one to an individual.
If Knowledge, choice, and reason are confined to individual[s] then that would be very subjective. Are you claiming such subjectivity is more credible over objectivity which is "collective reasoning."
"Collective reasoning" knowledge is the resultant from a Framework and System of Knowledge. The degrees of objective of such knowledge is conditioned the degree of credibility of the specific FSK.
Pinker is an erudite idiot, a believer and promoter of evolutionary psychology, describing the mind as a computer. His terrible understanding of language (totally devoid any rational epistemology) is very dangerous, especially to understanding how children learn.
It is idiotic to condemn a person's knowledge competency in such a hasty, plain & ad hominen manner.
I don't agree with all of Pinker's views, e.g. his 'Language is an innate instinct" and others but Pinker's view on rationality is sufficiently reasonable.
If Pinker claimed scientific knowledge is more rational than theology, quackery, pseudo-sciences, surely rational people will agree with that.
Suggest you read his whole book 'Rationality' before you start condemning Pinker as an idiot.
Something is very wrong with you re your above views on Pinker.
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:10 pm
by RCSaunders
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:58 am
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:17 pm
That is the
oxymoronic notion behind 99% of all irrationality. There is no such thing as, "collective reason." Knowledge, choice, and reason are only possible to individual human beingsd. Minds exist, one to an individual.
If Knowledge, choice, and reason are confined to individual[s] then that would be very subjective. Are you claiming such subjectivity is more credible over objectivity which is "collective reasoning."
"Collective reasoning" knowledge is the resultant from a Framework and System of Knowledge. The degrees of objective of such knowledge is conditioned the degree of credibility of the specific FSK.
Pinker is an erudite idiot, a believer and promoter of evolutionary psychology, describing the mind as a computer. His terrible understanding of language (totally devoid any rational epistemology) is very dangerous, especially to understanding how children learn.
It is idiotic to condemn a person's knowledge competency in such a hasty, plain & ad hominen manner.
I don't agree with all of Pinker's views, e.g. his 'Language is an innate instinct" and others but Pinker's view on rationality is sufficiently reasonable.
If Pinker claimed scientific knowledge is more rational than theology, quackery, pseudo-sciences, surely rational people will agree with that.
Suggest you read his whole book 'Rationality' before you start condemning Pinker as an idiot.
Something is very wrong with you re your above views on Pinker.
I read Pinker, probably before you had learned to read. He is an idiot.
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 6:19 am
by Veritas Aequitas
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:10 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:58 am
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:17 pm
That is the
oxymoronic notion behind 99% of all irrationality. There is no such thing as, "collective reason." Knowledge, choice, and reason are only possible to individual human beingsd. Minds exist, one to an individual.
If Knowledge, choice, and reason are confined to individual[s] then that would be very subjective. Are you claiming such subjectivity is more credible over objectivity which is "collective reasoning."
"Collective reasoning" knowledge is the resultant from a Framework and System of Knowledge. The degrees of objective of such knowledge is conditioned the degree of credibility of the specific FSK.
Pinker is an erudite idiot, a believer and promoter of evolutionary psychology, describing the mind as a computer. His terrible understanding of language (totally devoid any rational epistemology) is very dangerous, especially to understanding how children learn.
It is idiotic to condemn a person's knowledge competency in such a hasty, plain & ad hominen manner.
I don't agree with all of Pinker's views, e.g. his 'Language is an innate instinct" and others but Pinker's view on rationality is sufficiently reasonable.
If Pinker claimed scientific knowledge is more rational than theology, quackery, pseudo-sciences, surely rational people will agree with that.
Suggest you read his whole book 'Rationality' before you start condemning Pinker as an idiot.
Something is very wrong with you re your above views on Pinker.
I read Pinker, probably before you had learned to read. He is an idiot.
Your manner of branding someone like Steven Pinker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
as an idiot without critical thinking and with balanced views merely exposed you as an idiot, a bigot and an ignoramus.
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:58 pm
by RCSaunders
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 4:34 am
by Veritas Aequitas
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:58 pm
Feel better now?
The currency of this forum is not emotions & feelings but valid and sound arguments based on critical thinking.
If you don't meet these requirement but insist on condemning reputable philosophers without sound justifications, then you are what is described above.
Re: Steven Pinker: Rationality
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 1:21 pm
by RCSaunders
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 03, 2022 4:34 am
The currency of this forum is not emotions & feelings but valid and sound arguments based on critical thinking.
I would have thought so if it weren't for your emotional outbursts.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 03, 2022 4:34 am
If you don't meet these requirement but insist on condemning reputable philosophers without sound justifications, then you are what is described above.
"Reputable," just means having a reputation. All sorts of evil people have great reputations--at least until they're found out. Pinker is not a philosopher, he's a psychologist of the worst sort--
evolutionary psychology. All of psychology (not to be confused with the science of neurology, which most psychologists do), is pseudo-science, evolutionary psychology is pure blather.