He may look funny but he knows what he's doing. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. Enlightenment Now is a long and dense book, but be sure to read it all the way to the end, because all through this masterful narrative of our society, there are some of the most profound paragraphs, pages and chapters I’ve ever read. READ THIS BOOK! “One age cannot conclude a pact that would prevent succeeding ages from extending their insights, increasing their knowledge, and purging their errors. Far from this heading towards a better world, it does not bode well for democracy, real progress and proper enlightenment. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. We know that countries can slide back into these primitive conditions, and so we ignore the achievements of the Enlightenment at our peril. I have read (and re-read) The Better Angels of our Nature, and find it an exercise in how to put across a logically and rationally arrived at view, in spite of how the world seems through the eyes of the media. If there’s anything the Enlightenment thinkers had in common, it was an insistence that we energetically apply the standard of reason to understanding our world, and not fall back on generators of delusion like faith, dogma, revelation, authority, charisma, mysticism, divination, visions, gut feelings, or the hermeneutic parsing of sacred texts. Nothing could be further from historical reality. Inspire a love of reading with Amazon Book Box for Kids, Previous page of related Sponsored Products. ‘Peace for our time’ was his overoptimistic assessment of the situation because he failed to properly understand the evil before him. You can make the most of your capacity for pleasure and satisfaction, which allowed your ancestors to thrive and thereby allowed you to exist. This is an interesting book to review. He takes an optimistic view of the current political and social upheavals plaguing our world and puts them in context with both recent and ancient history. .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is remarkable, heart-warming, and long overdue." Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Hans Rosling. Others were pantheists, who used “God” as a synonym for the laws of nature. And there are so many reasons to live! A machine with a limited scope of intelligence, sprung out of selfish genes, inhabiting spacetime?”) It’s also that an obliviousness to the scope of human progress can lead to symptoms that are worse than existential angst. I usually only read one or two book reviews at most. He believes in werewolves, although there happen not to be any in England—he knows they are to be found in Belgium. This is a timely book that I recommend for every thinking person. “What at one time are their most effective expressions gradually become so worn with use that they cease to carry a definite meaning. Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature: “If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this—the most inspiring book I've ever read. But I knew I was channeling a body of beliefs and values that had taken shape more than two centuries before me and that are now more relevant than ever: the ideals of the Enlightenment. As a sentient being, you have the potential to flourish. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is remarkable, heart-warming, and long overdue." Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Or get 4-5 business-day shipping on this item for $5.99 Part I    Enlightenment   The common sense of the eighteenth century, its grasp of the obvious facts of human suffering, and of the obvious demands of human nature, acted on the world like a bath of moral cleansing. . Forget the naysayers. He believes that there is an ointment which, if rubbed on a dagger which has caused a wound, will cure the wound. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. “The West is shy of its values—it doesn’t speak up for classical liberalism,” he says. Most of this book is a feelgood delight, worth a million antidepressants, and totally compelling. What they also have in common is eternal optimism. Humanism has been around for a long time and enjoys a rather problematic reputation to the public. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. • Enlightenment Now: The Case for Science, Reason, Humanism and Progress is published by Allen Lane. less poverty, less inequality, fewer wars and improved health - and reason, science and humanism take the credit." I’ve been a fan of Pinker’s work since grad school and have seen nothing in this book to change that. Humanism, science and democracy have made our lives much better in the last 500 years. The Enlightenment has worked—perhaps the greatest story seldom told. — Christian Science Monitor “Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community, and the students are right to revere him.” —The Seattle Times Far from being an insipid consensus, these ideals are treated by today’s intellectuals with indifference, skepticism, and sometimes contempt. If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. He believes Circe really did turn Odysseus’s crew into pigs. Imagine obtaining the wisdom of the ancient Egyptian philosophers. Deutsch argues that if we dare to understand, progress is possible in all fields, scientific, political, and moral:   Optimism (in the sense that I have advocated) is the theory that all failures—all evils—are due to insufficient knowledge. Your selected delivery location is beyond seller's shipping coverage for this item. There's a reason this is Bill Gates' favorite book-- not of the year-- but of ALL TIME! This highly acclaimed spiritual guide tells of one man's struggle to free his soul while guiding the reader to their own inner freedom. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. They see the USA as a horrible place and in need of reform. I’m glad we have brilliant thinkers like Steven Pinker to help us see the big picture. Instant New York Times best-seller. I am a fellow social scientist and his portrayal of our progress over the last few centuries is striking and irrefutable. I’ve been seeing some unkind remarks, primarily by linguists, regarding Pinker online. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. Thinkers such as Kant, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Adam Smith were inquisitive psychologists and all too aware of our irrational passions and foibles. Many writers today confuse the Enlightenment endorsement of reason with the implausible claim that humans are perfectly rational agents. Free UK delivery on eligible orders. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. "—Bill Gates (May, 2017). He believes that the shape, colour and texture of a plant can be a clue to how it will work as a medicine because God designed nature to be interpreted by mankind. Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Please try again. After dark, too, the world was filled with omens portending dangers of every sort: comets, meteors, shooting stars, lunar eclipses, the howls of wild animals. . In his new book, Pinker points out that the slow creep of progress is not as newsworthy as, say, an earthquake or an explosion. I do not have the expertise to assess the details of the evidence Pinker relies on, but he does cite recognized authorities. You can foster the welfare of other sentient beings by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty, and peace. Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2019. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Something went wrong. . Some problems are hard, but it is a mistake to confuse hard problems with problems unlikely to be solved. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Copertina rigida – 13 feb 2018. di Steven Pinker (Autore) › Visita la pagina di Steven Pinker su Amazon. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. "—Richard Dawkins, “Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community.”—David Brooks, The New York Times, “[Enlightenment Now] is magnificent, uplifting and makes you want to rush to your laptop and close your Twitter account.”—The Economist, “[A] magisterial new book…Enlightenment Now is the most uplifting work of science I’ve ever read.”—Science Magazine, “A passionate and persuasive defense of reason and science…[and] an urgently needed reminder that progress is, to no small extent, a result of values that have served us - and can serve us - extraordinarily well.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer, “A meticulous defense of science and objective analysis, [and] a rebuttal to the tribalism, knee-jerk partisanship and disinformation that taints our politics.”—San Francisco Chronicle, “Brimming with surprising data and entertaining anecdotes.”—Financial Times, “[Pinker] makes a powerful case that the main line of history has been, since the Enlightenment, one of improvement.”—Scientific American, “Let’s stop once in a while to enjoy the view—I’m glad Pinker is pushing for this in a world that does it too rarely… It’s hard not to be convinced.”—Quartz, “Enlightenment Now is formidable.”—Financial Times, “As a demonstration of the value of reason, knowledge, and curiosity, Enlightenment Now can hardly be bettered.”—The Boston Globe, “With a wealth of knowledge, graphs and statistics, a strong grasp of history, and an engaging style of writing…Enlightenment Now provides a convincing case for gratitude.”—Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “A masterly defense of the values of modernity against ‘progressophobes’.”—Times Higher Education, “Enlightenment Now strikes a powerful blow against the contemporary mystifications being peddled by tribalists on both the left and the right.”—Reason “Pinker presents graphs and data which deserve to be reckoned with by fair-minded people. . The application of reason revealed that reports of miracles were dubious, that the authors of holy books were all too human, that natural events unfolded with no regard to human welfare, and that different cultures believed in mutually incompatible deities, none of them less likely than the others to be products of the imagination. “We are unsure of them. Every once in a while a book like this comes along - one that changes the way you look at almost everything. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are … Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2018. And some of his conclusions are irrefutable. 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,231. The Permanent Now: Exceptionally Accurate Guidance to Spiritual Awakening and Enlightenment, Cr… This is one of my favorite books of all time, perhaps my most favorite. Dieses Buch sagt den Pessimisten und Populisten den Kampf an - und zwar mit Zahlen und Fakten. It was an escape not just from ignorance but from terror. — Christian Science Monitor “Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community, and the students are right to revere him.” —The Seattle Times Please choose a different delivery location or purchase from another seller. This is primarily due to evangelicals who view humanism as a practice incrementally better than satanism. (“Dear Professor Pinker, What advice do you have for someone who has taken ideas in your books and science to heart, and sees himself as a collection of atoms? Superbly written and full of stats and interesting facts, but massively flawed in its overall optimism (but we do need optimists.) — Christian Science Monitor “Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community, and the students are right to revere him.” —The Seattle Times You can refine your faculty of reason itself by learning and debating. The era was a cornucopia of ideas, some of them contradictory, but four themes tie them together: reason, science, humanism, and progress. Unless one calls enlightenment, ‘blinded by the light!’. An Amazon Best Book of March 2018: Given the 24-hour news cycle to which we have grown accustomed, it’s difficult to navigate life and think that everything is peachy. When you are done, you'll feel-- not as if you're flying above the storm-- but so much better because you'll realize there's no storm to worry about in the first place! what dissapointed me most that i didnt see any new ideas i side- to be honest i didnt have wil to read whole book through as i lost interest....would recommend it to teenagers who are just starting to discover the world...they will probably discover plenty of nteresting things. . This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. With the implausible claim that humans are living longer healthier lives ( pp take on far. Flawed in its overall optimism ( but we do need optimists. ) spontaneously in... To suffer through a few years of life perpetuating itself, you can start Kindle... Believes mice are spontaneously generated in piles of straw, less inequality fewer... 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