The Long Reach of Reason

 Ideas  

In a TED first, Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein hold an animated Socratic dialog about reason. In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, they ask, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power?

WWatch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold.

"It's reason that provides the push to widen our circle of empathy."

The dialog was recorded live at TED, and animated, in incredible, often hilarious, detail by Cognitive.

The debate closely follows the themes of Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

Pinker is one of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind. His popular and highly praised books include The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

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"The Blank Slate," "Words and Rules," How the Mind Works, and "The Language Instinct." Pinker is the recipient of several major awards for his teaching, books, and scientific research, Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He also writes frequently for The New York Times, Time, The New Republic, and other magazines.

Goldstein is a novelist and philosopher. Her novels include The Mind-Body Problem, "The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind," Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics and her latest, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Vintage Contemporaries).  Currently she is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology, Harvard University.

SOURCE  TED

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