This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Instead of feeling any need to persuade, people who are certain they are correct can impose their beliefs by force. In theocracies and autocracies, authorities censor, imprison, exile, or burn those with the wrong opinions. In democracies the force is less brutish, but people still find means to impose a belief rather than argue for it. Modern universities – oddly enough, given that their mission is to evaluate ideas – have been at the forefront of finding ways to suppress opinions, including disinviting and drowning out speakers, removing controversial teachers from the classroom, revoking offers of jobs and support, expunging contentious articles from archives, and classifying differences of opinion as punishable harassment and discrimination.” – Steven Pinker, Chapter 2: Rationality and Irrationality, Page 50-51
“And another reason not to blow off persuasion is that you will have left those who disagree with you no choice but to join the game you are playing and counter you with force rather than argument. They may be stronger than you, if not now then at some time in the future. At that point, when you are the one who is canceled, it will be too late to claim that your views should be taken seriously because of their merits.” – Steven Pinker, Chapter 2: Rationality and Irrationality, Page 51
“And that is the power of reason: it can reason about
itself. When something appears mad, we
can look for a method to the madness.
When a future self might act irrationally, a present self can outsmart
it. When a rational argument slips into
fallacy or sophistry, an even more rational argument exposes it. And if you disagree – if you think there is a
flaw in this argument – it’s reason that allows you to do so.” – Steven Pinker,
Chapter 2: Rationality and Irrationality, Page 74
Is This An Overview?
Using rational reasoning skills, humans have been able to achieve material and scientific progress. Rationality is composed of cognitive tools that people use to understand a situation, to find potential solutions to a problem. Rationality is often found in groups, as each individual reciprocates in finding each other’s fallacies. Reason can reason about reason, which enables people to disagree and find alternative solutions. There are situations in which people can find rational reasons to behave irrationally, situations in which there is strategic value in ignorance. People use reasoning skills when they argue, persuade, evaluate, accept, or reject an argument instead of threatening and coercing each other.
Various social and
institutional systems used force to shape others’ beliefs rather than use
persuasion. The acceptable methods of
forcing beliefs on others have changed, but even institutions that are meant to
evaluate ideas, find ways to suppress divergent views. The problem of using force, is that force can
leave the opposition with no alternative other than to reciprocate with force. Relative power can shift to the opposition
who will reciprocate the lack of willingness to be heard on merits.
Caveats?
The book expresses rationality
through various methods such as formal logic, game theory, and
probability. Although the decision
theory and mathematics are provided in an introductory form, a reader who has
not yet learned the ideas might need to apply more effort to understand them
such as by researching for more details and applications. The way some parts are written can contradict
values in other parts, such as highlighting individual failures of rationality
even though the group process of finding rationality is understood, and sharing
causes to biases but providing various examples that enable the biases to
occur.
