Steven Pinker
Progress. It is one of the animating concepts of the modern era. From the Enlightenment onwards, the West has had an enduring belief that through the evolution of institutions, innovations, and ideas, the human condition is improving. This process is supposedly accelerating as new technologies, individual freedoms, and the spread of global norms empower individuals and societies around the world. But is progress inevitable? Its critics argue that
...Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books?including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate?have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today?s most important popular science...
Stephen Pinker's optimistic 2011 book argues that, despite humanity's biological tendency toward violence, we are, in fact, less violent today than ever before citing extensive statistical evidence. For him, much of the credit for the decline goes to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment movement, whose ideas of liberty, tolerance, and respect for the value of human life filtered down through society and affected how people thought. That psychological
...Before Steven Pinker wrote bestsellers on language and human nature, he wrote several technical monographs on language acquisition that have become classics in cognitive science. Learnability and Cognition, first published in 1989, brought together two big topics: how do children learn their mother tongue,
..."A model of scientific writing: erudite, witty, and clear." —New York Review of Books
In this Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love?
..."Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive." —Time
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Updated with a new afterword
One of the world's leading experts on language and the mind explores the idea of human nature...
Steven Pinker's 12-part guide to thinking better
'A paean to human potential' The Telegraph
Cognitive scientist Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking, and now he wants us to join him. With the aid of his critical thinking toolkit, he hopes to help us make smarter choices, become more rational, gain a greater understanding of the confused world we live in - and maybe even become better