Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

13 hrs. 22 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Author Steven Pinker

Narrator Stefan Barkovskiy

Description

Right now, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and at the same time, it seems to be slowly losing its mind. Why has a species that developed vaccines against COVID in less than a year become mired in fake news, medical charlatanism, and conspiracy theories?

Pinkеr immediately rejects the cynical cliché that people are simply irrational—that they are eternal troglodytes, ready to respond to a lion in the grass with a pile of prejudices, blind spots, false conclusions, and illusions. After all, it was us who managed to discover the laws of nature, transform the planet, extend and enrich our own lives—and (not least of all) work out the rules of rationality.

In truth, our mind isn’t adapted only to the Pleistocene savanna. It does just fine everywhere where people don’t have to deal with scientific or technological questions—because, as it turns out, people rarely face something like this. But, alas, they do not know how to fully use the tools of cognition that they themselves developed over the last few millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability theory, ways of understanding correlation and causation, as well as the optimal methods for refining opinions and putting decisions into practice—both individually and collectively.

These tools aren’t taught as part of typical educational programs, and until now they’ve never been explained clearly in their entirety.

Rationality matters. It helps us make the right choices both at the individual level and at the level of society as a whole—and ultimately it is the root cause of the growth of social justice and moral progress. Filled with Pinker’s characteristic insight and humor, “Rationality” enlightens, inspires, and encourages.