Steven Pinker
Cognitive scientist and author at Harvard; writes on rationality, language and human progress.
Everything they publish, on ppll ↗
Steven Pinker did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
The line under a date shows how recently it was said: empty within a month, full after three years.
-
Their wordsWhether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will interact with the nature of cognition to make us think that it is.
↗The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences (The Guardian, adapted from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsThe consequences of negative news are themselves negative.
↗The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences (The Guardian, adapted from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 6 days earlier
-
Our reading
Reason is non-negotiable: arguing that others should share your beliefs commits you to it
Their wordsReason is non-negotiable. As soon as you show up to discuss the question of what we should believe (or any other question), as long as you insist that your answers, whatever they are, are reasonable or justified or true and that therefore other people ought to believe them too, then you have committed yourself to reason, and to holding your beliefs accountable to objective standards.
↗'Reason is non-negotiable': Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment (The Guardian, extract from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 1st of 5 in this piece
-
Their wordsIf the abolition of slavery and cruel punishment is not progress, nothing is, which brings us to the fourth Enlightenment ideal.
↗'Reason is non-negotiable': Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment (The Guardian, extract from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
-
Their wordsThough these developments were sometimes linked to the word progress, the usage was ironic: “progress” unguided by humanism is not progress.
↗'Reason is non-negotiable': Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment (The Guardian, extract from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
-
Their wordsExchange can make an entire society not just richer but nicer, because in an effective market it is cheaper to buy things than to steal them and other people are more valuable to you alive than dead.
↗'Reason is non-negotiable': Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment (The Guardian, extract from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 4th of 5 in this piece
-
Their wordsIf you extol reason, then what matters is the integrity of the thoughts, not the personalities of the thinkers.
↗'Reason is non-negotiable': Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment (The Guardian, extract from Enlightenment Now)theguardian.com 5th of 5 in this piece
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.