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Rationality
- What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
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Rationality
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help you understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? These are the goals of Rationality, Steven Pinker's follow-up to Enlightenment Now.
In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and, at the same time, appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorising?
Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains that we think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation and decision-making. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now.
Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity and uplifting mythology by individuals can add up to crippling irrationality in a society. Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth.
Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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What listeners say about Rationality
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Paul La Femina
- 07-12-21
rational!
An excellent book well read that should be understood as best as possible by everyone.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- somsween
- 22-12-22
disappointing.
in short - this could be titled: an abridged version of the better angels of our nature. so much of its content except for a few mentions of covid is practically the same, I expected something different, sorry
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- DJ Ricks
- 14-12-21
Good book
A good book in general but don't listen to half awake! This book needs some serious concentration and for some of it a PDF to go though a long with the book. Not really one for the car but maybe some quite time and deep thinking. Great book just maybe not quite one 100% for me and my circumstances! Just maybe the voice acting could have been a little more upbeat to help with keeping me engaged but the overall concept, content and layout of the book was extremely good.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lara Reusch
- 11-10-21
Rationality
Classic Pinker. Illuminating, insightful, refreshing, fun. Brought to life with another brilliant performance by Arthur Morey.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 07-02-24
A masterpiece
Well, this is Pinker - which means well thought, well written, well questioned.
This is the second book I got about it. The first I read and this one I heard. Both you have to concentrate and struggle. He is quite clear, but the subjects are complex. Beware this is a book which multitasking while listening is not possible if you want to learn. You may struggle, but it totally worths.
Narrator keeps up with the flow and how ideas are posed. Great professional.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Nandu Pillai
- 23-04-22
Difficult audio book
An interesting topic approached from angles I hadn't considered before but you might be better off reading this one due to the use of multiple graphs, diagrams and statistics to get points across.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Matthew
- 07-07-23
A good book, not an audiobook
I really enjoy thinkers like Steven Pinker. This book, sadly, doesn't work as an audiobook because every so often the narrator says something like "now look at example 7 in the pdf". If you are dusting the living room or weeding the vegetable patch, that doesn't work.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- GenFranco
- 18-11-21
Nothing new, unbalanced and mediocre
I love some of Pinker's work, but this book was a dissapointment. it may be that I've just heard much of the topics covered before, either by Pinker himself, or by others (Kahneman / Tetlock / Gigerenzer) or it may be that I just felt it didn't explore the counter argument well enough to validate his central thesis. There's nothing wrong with unbalanced books, but they work much better when they provide the contrarian view and swim against the tide. This does neither, even just to sharpen its own argument. I much preferred books on this subject by the other authors mentioned, or the excellent "Radical Uncertainty" by Mervyn King, which really provides the arguments against which a book like this by Pinker should be looking to tackle. I also felt the book was a little smug, and slightly tribal. He played to his political base and came off sounding condescending at times. I guess living in North America does that to a person these days. Don't get me wrong, it was still a solid 3 stars and well worth a read. I've just come to expect a whole lot more from Pinker.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Pablo Gomez
- 18-04-22
Not really fit for an audio book
Due to the abundant references to visual materials, I didn't find this excellent book suited to be narrated. It needs to be read.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- Robert
- 17-11-21
Falls short but still a good book
Some of his arguments are quite weak, especially when he ventured into the topic of morality. I think he’s quite soft on the religious argument and gives religion too much credit that it doesn’t deserve.
However he does provide some good explanation of more common reasoning errors.
He also makes the point about the left/right being in a battle for moral superiority and ignoring reason placing ideology first.
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