Stephen Pinker
Story Stream
The Promise and Limits of Rationality March 28, 2022
teven Pinker is the greatest Whig theorist of our day. In book after book, he argues that the world is improving through the continual application of our rational intelligence. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, he showed that violence—whether in th...
How Humans Gained an ‘Extra Life’ May 17, 2021
As you read of the many contemporary threats to life and limb, from pollution to shooting rampages, you may long for a simpler and safer yesteryear. But if the conditions of the past prevailed today, you would probably be dead. The average age of a N...
Endarkenment Later August 24, 2018
Here's a capsule history of the transition from medieval Scholasticism to the Enlightenment. Following Aristotle, Scholastics like Thomas Aquinas held that a complete understanding of any natural phenomenon requires attention to each of its four caus...
Our New, Happy Life? The Ideology of Development May 25, 2018
In George Orwell's 1984, there is a moment when the Party announces an “increase” in the chocolate ration – from thirty grams to twenty. No one except for the protagonist, Winston, seems to notice that the ration has gone down not up.‘Comrades!' crie...
