Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive scientist. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won many prizes for his research, teaching, and his eleven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, one of Foreign Policy's 'World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals' and Time's '100 Most Influential People in the World Today'.
Steven Pinker is the high priest of rationalism ... [This book] is
an impassioned and zippy introduction to the tools of rational
thought ... Pinker wants probability theory and psychological
biases to be taught in schools and universities. Punchy, funny and
invigorating, this could be the textbook.
*Sunday Times*
Steven Pinker is among the best science writers in history, and
with Rationality he applies his talents to one of the most
important and misunderstood human abilities - tracking reality with
a brain that was designed to do so under some circumstances but not
others. If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself
smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining,
and more effective.
*Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern School of Business and author of The
Righteous Mind*
The Enlightenment torchbearer is eloquent in his defence of clear
thinking ... [reason] is a tool that human beings have to learn to
use with care, something this book will help any reader to do.
*Financial Times*
Rationality - like all of Pinker's work - [is] a paen to human
potential... what Pinker really trades in are profoundly
refreshing, energising sets of explanations for why we do and think
the way we do ... harnessing reason is not just useful in all kinds
of ways both personal and universal, but a wondrous property of
being human.
*Daily Telegraph*
Almost every sentence in Rationality is crisp and intelligible,
which is quite a feat, given that explaining logic to humans is
like teaching them Sanskrit. Pinker suggests various ways to run
our collective affairs more rationally.
*New Statesman*
A reader-friendly primer in better thinking through the cultivation
of that rarest of rarities: a sound argument.
*Kirkus*
Rationality is a terrific book, much-needed for our time. In
addition to drawing together the tools for overcoming obstacles to
rational thinking, Pinker breaks new ground with the evidence he
provides linking rationality and moral progress.
*Peter Singer*
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