PINKER: First, rationality is always in pursuit of a goal. GAZETTE: We see examples of seemingly irrational beliefs and behaviors every day, but you argue that people are fully capable of being rational. PINKER: I define it as the use of knowledge to attain a goal, where “knowledge,” according to the standard philosopher’s definition, is “justified true belief.” GAZETTE: Can you define rationality in a sentence? The interview was edited for clarity and length. In 2007 Pinker lent his professional expertise to Epstein’s legal defense team.a sterling example of a thinking process so confidently pristine that it can give unthinking cover to the grotesque.At a time when belief in science appears to be waning, conspiracy theories seem to be on the rise, and many Americans cannot agree on basic facts, Steven Pinker argues for a return to rational thought and public discourse in his latest book, “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.” Pinker, Harvard’s Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, and author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” and “Enlightenment Now,” thinks “we will always need to push back against our own irrationality,” and that education, democracy, science, and journalism, along with an awareness of our own biases, can help us embrace a more rational approach to everyday issues.

He still disparages those who have the audacity to question his ideas about progress. The tone of Rationality isn’t as relentlessly chipper as that of the previous book, but Pinker’s optimism seems to have weathered the Trump years and the pandemic largely intact. Some of Pinker’s observations on racial issues are similarly blinkered. The trouble arrives when he tries to gussy up his psychologist’s hat with his more elaborate public intellectual’s attire. When Pinker is dealing with abstract puzzles involving small-stakes situations, the book is familiar but fine. Pinker spends page after page walking us through concepts like 'base-rate neglect' (giving too little weight to the original probability of an event in the face of new information) and the 'availability heuristic' (guessing the likelihood of an event according to what comes easily to mind). For someone who so frequently and serenely proclaims that he’s right, Steven Pinker can get curiously defensive.

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