Liberalism, Through a Glass Darkly
Our contribution to a Palgrave blog (typos will be corrected). Austrian Economicsclassical liberalismEconomicsFriedrich HayekG.L.S. shackleHistory of Economic Thoughtpolitical economysteven pinker
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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Pinker’s forthcoming bestseller which I’m expecting Taleb to eventually rip into. Despite Pinker ostensibly being a classical liberal his implicit progressivist ebullience is suspect. Epistemic humility is not seen as a cultural virtue: it is the zeitgeist of the modern age that we exist in a (misperceived) linear trajectory of progress, progress here taken to be…
Evolutionary Psychology and the Standard Social Science Model: Regaining the Middle Ground
David Sloan Wilson reports. Anthony BiglanB.F. Skinnerbehaviorismblank slateDavid Sloan WilsonDennis EmbryEvolutionary PsychologyJohn ToobyLeda CosmidesSteven C. Hayessteven pinker
Undoing Insularity: A Small Study of Gender Sociology’s Big Problem
Ah yes, a priesthood that is not at all interested in science and the pursuit of TRUTH. While it’s just tiresome to hear parents gushing about their novitiate children building an “academic” career (i.e. reheated cultural Marxism, activism dressed as inquiry, deploying the usual buzz words of identity and power), what is most disconcerting are their philosophical enablers, not just…
Alice Dreger on Academic Freedom
Alice Dreger talks about the importance of academic freedom and why the corporatization of the modern university threatens free speech on campus. I’ve been aware of the wonderful work of FIRE for some sixteen years ago, an outfit first brought to my attention by the immensely brave Mary Lefkowitz (more on Mary in the near future). The first video acts as an overture…
Shakespeare: One of the First and Greatest Psychologists
Pinker in The Atlantic. (H/T to Shannon Selin) Worse still, we humans are the last to notice our own limited nature. In seven words, Shakespeare sums up a good portion of the findings of modern psychology: “most ignorant of what he’s most assured.” A recurring discovery of social and cognitive psychology is that human beings…
The psychology of coordination and common knowledge
Recent paper coauthored by Pinker, freely available here. altruismCognitive sciencecollective beliefcollective intentionalitycollective knowledgecoordination problemdistributed knowledgePhilosophy of mindprivate knowledgePsychologysocial cognitionsocial epistemologyspeech actssteven pinker
Dennett on Wieseltier vs. Pinker
This from Edge Postmodernism, the school of “thought” that proclaimed “There are no truths, only interpretations” has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for “conversations” in which…
Rattle, Ligeti, Wagner and Ravel
An exceptional prom in a so-so season despite this being one of London’s biggest years since VE Day. What was distinctive was that each piece cleverly flowed into each other thereby “robbing” the audience of the opportunity to clap. And no, the photo is of Simon Rattle and not Steven Pinker. See The Telegraph’s glowing…
Pinker’s Parts: Past, Present and Future?
I came across this article in The New York Times. January 11, 2009 I’m pasting it in since access may well be denied. My Genome, My Self By STEVEN PINKER ONE OF THE PERKS of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself. I have been tested for…
manwithoutqualities 