Rationality (book)

Last updated
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
Rationality (Steven Pinker).png
First edition cover
Author Steven Pinker
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Rationality
Publisher Viking
Publication date
September 28, 2021
Pages432
ISBN 978-0-525-56199-6
OCLC 1237806678
153.4/2
LC Class BF441 .P56 2021

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters is a 2021 book written by Canadian-American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. [1] The book was published on September 28, 2021, by the Viking imprint of Penguin Random House. [2]

Contents

It argues that rationality is a key driver of moral and social progress, and it attempts to resolve the apparent conflict between scientific progress and increasing levels of disinformation. Pinker explains several concepts underlying rationality, including from the fields of logic, probability theory, statistics, and social choice. [3]

Reception

The book debuted at number nine on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending October 2, 2021. [4]

In its starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote, "He manages to be scrupulously rigorous yet steadily accessible and entertaining." [5] To Andrew Anthony on The Guardian , Pinker, not a "dry and humourless slave to rational thought", "knows that what we find funny is often nothing more than clever inversions of logic". [6] Kirkus Reviews wrote, "The author can be heady and geeky, but seldom to the point that his discussions shade off into inaccessibility." [7]

On The New York Times , Jennifer Szalai commented that "The trouble arrives when he [Pinker] tries to gussy up his psychologist's hat with his more elaborate public intellectual's attire", [8] while Anthony Gottlieb noted Pinker's tendencies to "exaggerate the popularity of ill-founded beliefs" and to devote "plenty of space to advocating rationality, which the authors of similar works have not found necessary to do, perhaps because anybody who chooses to read about rationality is probably already in favor of it." [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Karl</span> American journalist (born 1968)

Jonathan D. Karl is an American political journalist and author. Karl has covered every major assignment in Washington, D.C., including the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the U.S. State Department, and has reported from more than 30 countries, covering U.S. politics, foreign policy, and the military.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David G. Haskell</span> British and American biologist and writer

David George Haskell is a British and American biologist, writer, and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at Sewanee: The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in General Nonfiction. In addition to scientific papers, he has written essays, poems, op-eds, and the books The Forest Unseen, The Songs of Trees, Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree, and Sounds Wild and Broken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethany Barton</span> American author and illustrator

Bethany Barton is an author and illustrator of children's books.

<i>Doing Good Better</i> 2015 book about effective altruism by William MacAskill

Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and How You Can Make a Difference is a 2015 book by William MacAskill that serves as a primer on the effective altruism movement that seeks to do the most good. It is published by Random House and was released on July 28, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amor Towles</span> American novelist (born 1964)

Amor Towles is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011), A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), and The Lincoln Highway (2021).

<i>Enlightenment Now</i> 2018 book by Steven Pinker

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is a 2018 book written by Canadian-American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. It argues that the Enlightenment values of reason, science, and humanism have brought progress, and that health, prosperity, safety, peace, and happiness have tended to rise worldwide. It is a follow-up to Pinker's 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature.

Kate Bowler is a Canadian academic and writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Bowler is currently an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School.

<i>Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World</i> 2018 non-fiction book by Anand Giridharadas

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World is a 2018 non-fiction book by American author Anand Giridharadas. It is his third book and was published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 28, 2018. The book appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

<i>Say Nothing</i> (book) 2018 book by Patrick Radden Keefe

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland is a 2018 book by writer and journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. It focuses on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It spent six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list and received widespread critical acclaim.

<i>How to Be an Antiracist</i> 2019 nonfiction book by Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist is a 2019 nonfiction book by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi, which combines social commentary and memoir. It was published under Random House's One World imprint. The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's proposals for anti-racist individual actions and systemic changes.

<i>Blowout</i> (book) 2019 non-fiction book by Rachel Maddow

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth is a 2019 non-fiction book by Rachel Maddow. It is her second book and was published by Crown on October 1, 2019. It concerns corruption in the oil and gas industry and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

<i>Untamed</i> (memoir) 2020 memoir by Glennon Doyle

Untamed is a 2020 memoir by Glennon Doyle. It was published by The Dial Press on March 10, 2020. It is her third memoir following her works Love Warrior and Carry on, Warrior.

<i>Begin Again</i> (book) 2020 non-fiction book by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own is a 2020 book by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Covering the life and works of American writer and activist James Baldwin, and the theme of racial inequality in the United States, Glaude uses these topics to discuss what he views as historical failed opportunities for America to "begin again". He analyzes Baldwin's activism and sexuality and his non-fiction writings, perceiving a shift in his later works. Glaude uses ideas from Baldwin to comment on contemporary racial topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013.

<i>Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</i> 2020 book by Isabel Wilkerson

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is a nonfiction book by the American journalist Isabel Wilkerson, published in August 2020 by Random House. The book describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson does so by comparing aspects of the experience of American people of color to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, and she explores the impact of caste on societies shaped by them, and their people.

<i>A Promised Land</i> 2020 memoir by Barack Obama

A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the presidential memoir documents Obama's life from his early years through to the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The book is 768 pages long and available in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into two dozen languages. There is also a 29-hour audiobook edition that is read by Obama himself.

<i>Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art</i> 2020 book by James Nestor

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is a 2020 popular science book by science journalist James Nestor. The book provides a historical, scientific and personal examination of breathing, with a specific interest in contrasting the differences between mouth breathing and nasal breathing. The book became an international bestseller, selling over two million copies worldwide.

<i>Midnight in Washington</i> 2021 non-fiction book by Adam Schiff

Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could is a memoir written by Congressman Adam Schiff and published in 2021 by Random House. The book mainly recounts the effects of the Trump presidency. The book debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending October 16, 2021.

<i>The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story</i> 2021 anthology by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a 2021 anthology of essays and poetry, published by Random House's One World imprint on November 16, 2021. It is a book-length expansion of the essays presented in the 1619 Project issue of The New York Times Magazine in August 2019. The book was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine, and is edited by Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein.

<i>Call Us What We Carry</i> 2021 poetry collection by Amanda Gorman

Call Us What We Carry is a poetry collection by Amanda Gorman, published December 7, 2021, by Viking Press. The book landed the first position on the New York Times Best Seller List. It was translated into Spanish by Nuria Barrios in 2023.

The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance is a 2000 nonfiction book by Anthony Gottlieb, the first in a series of three volumes that introduce Western philosophy to a wide audience. The second volume is The Dream of Enlightenment. The third volume in the trilogy—which will continue chronologically from Immanuel Kant—will complete the survey, that has been compared to Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy published in 1945.

References