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Rationality [sound recording] : what it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters / by Pinker, Steven,1954-author.(CARDINAL)332272; Morey, Arthur,narrator.(CARDINAL)780477;
Read by Arthur Morey.Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding₆and also 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, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical clich ťhat humans are simply irrational, 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 out the benchmarks for rationality itself. We actually 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 we₂ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book, until now.
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Critical thinking.; Practical reason.; Choice (Psychology);
Available copies: 3 / Total copies: 3
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Rationality : what it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters / by Pinker, Steven,1954-author.(CARDINAL)332272;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-388) and indexes."Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it explain why there seems to be so much irrationality in the world, including, let's be honest, in each of us? These are the goals of Steven Pinker's follow-up to Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates's 'new favorite book of all time'). Humans today are often portrayed as cavemen out of time, poised to react to a lion in the grass with a suite of biases, blind spots, fallacies, and illusions. But this, Pinker a cognitive scientist and rational optimist argues, cannot be the whole picture. Hunter-gatherers--our ancestors and contemporaries--are not nervous rabbits but cerebral problem-solvers. A list of the ways in which we are stupid cannot explain how we're so smart: how we discovered the laws of nature, transformed the planet, and lengthened and enriched our lives. Indeed, if humans were fundamentally irrational, how did they discover the benchmarks for rationality against which humans fall short? The topic could not be more timely. 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 sequenced the genome and detected the Big Bang produce so much fake news, quack cures, conspiracy theories, and 'post-truth' rhetoric? A big part of Rationality is to explain these tools--to inspire an intuitive understanding of the benchmarks of rationality, so you can understand the basics of logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, the optimal ways to adjust our beliefs and commit to decisions with uncertain evidence, and the yardsticks for making rational choices alone and with others. Rationality matters. As the world reels from foolish choices made in the past and dreads a future that may be shaped by senseless choices in the present, rationality may be the most important asset that citizens and influencers command. Steven Pinker, the great defender of human progress, having documented how the world is not falling apart, now shows how we can enhance rationality in our lives and in the public sphere. Rationality is the perfect toolkit to seize our own fates"--Massachusetts Book Awards Must-Read Book (Nonfiction), 2022
Subjects: Informational works.; Critical thinking.; Practical reason.; Choice (Psychology);
Available copies: 39 / Total copies: 44
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Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles / by Ariely, Dan.(CARDINAL)354827;
Subjects: Reasoning (Psychology); Practical reason.; Irrationalism (Philosophy); Logic.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The critique of pure reason; The critique of practical reason : and other ethical treatises; The critique of judgement / by Kant, Immanuel,1724-1804.(CARDINAL)139117; Hutchins, Robert Maynard,1899-1977,editor in chief.(CARDINAL)127876;
Subjects: German literature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Thinking like an economist [sound recording] : a guide to rational decision making / by Bartlett, Randall,1945-; Teaching Company.(CARDINAL)349444;
Lecturer, Randall Bartlett.Randall Barlett, professor of economics at Smith College, applies economic principles to the making of fully rational real-life decisions.
Subjects: Economics; Practical reason.; Decision making.; Consumer behavior.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The philosopher's toolkit [videorecording] : how to be the most rational person in any room / by Grim, Patrick,teacher.; Teaching Company,production company,publisher.(CARDINAL)349444;
Taught by : Professor Patrick Grim, State University of New York at Stony Brook."Professor Grim's work spans ethics, logic, game theory, philosophy of science, and contemporary metaphysics."DVD, NTSC.
Subjects: Educational films.; Lectures.; Nonfiction films.; Video recordings.; Ethics.; Game theory.; Metaphysics.; Philosophy; Practical reason.; Thought and thinking.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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More human : designing a world where people come first / by Hilton, Steve,author.; Bade, Scott,author.; Bade, Jason,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."More Human is a groundbreaking manifesto that ranges across many aspects of life--from food to government, the economy to health care--to argue that we need to redesign, reorganize, and reconsider our world in terms more suited to the way we truly, naturally, humanly are. It talks about how to make our institutions more human, our products and services more human, and even our buildings more human. Something's gone wrong with the way we're meant to organize our lives. Vast bureaucratic machines run government and our education system--the equivalent of factory-style mass production, except for intimate aspects of our lives such as our health and wellbeing. Cities were built based on how planners believed we should live, not how we actually would. Education systems were designed based on what we thought kids needed to learn, not what actually matters now and for the future. All these systems were developed in the 20th century, but they are outmoded now, cumbersome and impersonal. We need to replace these systems with something more human, where the people making decisions are closer to the people affected by them. In health care, our focus on "efficiency" undermines our goal of improving health. Hilton argues we need to put the "care" back in health care. Our food-industrial complex has made us sicker, and Hilton shows how we need to change our taxpayer-subsidized factory food system, and connect farmers with consumers more directly. We have become obsessed with child-protection at all costs, and as a result, have become blase; about the impact of technology on child development, and have neglected what children truly need: play. Steve Hilton argues brilliantly that a more human future is within our grasp if we have the courage to reach for it, legislate for it, and care for it. In the face of big government, big business, big banks, and big tech stands one inexorable opponent: a single human, ready to argue his case"--
Subjects: Human behavior.; Practical reason.; Choice (Psychology); Political planning.; Social policy.; Social change.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 3
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The knowledge machine : how irrationality created modern science / by Strevens, Michael,author.(CARDINAL)836720;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-329) and index.Introduction: the knowledge machine -- I. The great method debate -- Unearthing the scientific method -- Human frailty -- The essential subjectivity of science -- II. How science works -- The iron rule of explanation -- Baconian convergence -- Explanatory ore -- The drive for objectivity -- The supremacy of observation -- III. Why science took so long -- Science's strategic irrationality -- The war against beauty -- The advent of science -- IV. Science now -- Building the scientific mind -- Science and humanism -- Care and maintenance of the knowledge machine."A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. Captivatingly written, interwoven with tantalizing illustrations and historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens's wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics, for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of nature? The Knowledge Machine's radical answer is that science calls on its practitioners to do something irrational: by willfully ignoring religion, theoretical beauty, and, especially, philosophy-essentially stripping away all previous knowledge-scientists embrace an unnaturally narrow method of inquiry, channeling unprecedented energy into observation and experimentation. Like Yuval Harari's Sapiens or Thomas Kuhn's 1962 classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine overturns much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world"--
Subjects: Instructional and educational works.; Creative nonfiction.; Science; Science; Science; Irrationality (Philosophy); Knowledge, Theory of.; Practical reason.;
Available copies: 11 / Total copies: 11
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What would Aristotle do? : self-control through the power of reason / by Cohen, Elliot D.(CARDINAL)740977;
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Case studies.; Conduct of life; Philosophical counseling; Practical reason; Self-control;
Available copies: 3 / Total copies: 3
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Great books of the Western world. by Kant, Immanuel,1724-1804.(CARDINAL)139117; Meiklejohn, J. M. D.(John Miller Dow),1836-1902,translator.(CARDINAL)192601; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.(CARDINAL)147481;
MARCIVE 03/01/06
Subjects: Knowledge, Theory of; Causation; Reason; Ethics, Modern; Judgment (Logic); Aesthetics, Modern; Teleology;
Available copies: 6 / Total copies: 8
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