steven pinker

Steven Pinker on Writing In The 21st Century

Steven Pinker - Writing In The 21st Century [6.9.14]

Harvard University professor and FIRE Advisory Council member Steven Pinker is a rockstar academic. He has written 10 books, many of which are bestsellers, including most recently “The Better Angels of our Nature” and “The Sense of Style.” On this episode of So to Speak, we chat with Professor Pinker about free speech, free inquiry, taboo, dangerous ideas, and, of course, his forthcoming book on the Enlightenment: “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.” Here is the recommended reading list provided by Professor Pinker during the podcast:  Immanuel Kant’s “What is the Enlightenment?” Thomas Nagel’s “The Last Word” Jonathan Glover’s “Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century”  www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

Harvard professor Steven Pinker

The Enlightenment worked, says Steven Pinker.  By promoting reason, science, humanism, progress, and peace, the programs set in motion by the 18th-Century intellectual movement became so successful we’ve lost track of what that success came from.  

Some even discount the success itself, preferring to ignore or deny how much better off humanity keeps becoming, decade after decade, in terms of health, food, money, safety, education, justice, and opportunity.  The temptation is to focus on the daily news, which is often dire, and let it obscure the long term news, which is shockingly good.

This is the 21st Century, not the 18th, with different problems and different tools.  What are Enlightenment values and programs for now?

A psychology professor at Harvard, Steven Pinker is the author of: Enlightenment Now (2018); The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011); The Blank Slate (2002); How the Mind Works (1997); and The Language Instinct (1994).

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Steven Pinker - A New Enlightenment

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'Enlightenment Now' (w/ Steven Pinker)

America, observers are fond of saying, is the only country based upon an idea. That idea—that all men and women are created equal and have inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is directly informed by the Enlightenment, the movement that dominated ideas and culture in the 18th century.

But are we still an Enlightenment nation?

"The Enlightenment principle that we can apply reason and sympathy to enhance human flourishing may seem obvious," writes Steven Pinker in his new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. "I wrote this book because I have come to realize that it's not."

Pinker is a linguist who teaches at Harvard and is the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Blank Slate, and How the Mind Works. He's been named on the top 100 most influential intellectuals by both Time and Foreign Policy.

In this wide-ranging interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie, Pinker explains why he thinks Pope Francis is a problem when it comes to capitalism, nuclear energy is a solution to climate change, and why libertarians need to lighten up when it comes to regulation. He also makes the case for studying the humanities as essential to intellectual honesty and seriousness even as he attacks that "cluster of ideas, which is not the same as the humanities, but just happens to have descended over large sectors of the academic humanities: "the deep hatred of the institutions of modernity, the equation of liberal democracy with fascism, the feeling that society is in an ever-worsening spiral of decline, and the lack of appreciation, I think, that the institutions of liberal democracy have made the humanities possible, made them flourish."

Edited by Todd Krainin. 

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steven pinker

MOHAMMED AL-ASHWAL