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Enlightenment now : the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress

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  • Temps de fonctionnement: 19:49 hrs
    Voix de: Arthur Morey
    Publisher:
    Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2018
    Note: This book was purchased with support from the Government of Canada's Social Development Partnerships Program - Disability Component.
  • Accessibilité:
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    Certified Accessible By: National Network for Equitable Library Service
    Temps de fonctionnement: 19:49 hrs
    Voix de: Arthur Morey
    Publisher:
    BC Libraries Cooperative, 2024
    Note: This book was purchased with support from the Government of Canada's Social Development Partnerships Program - Disability Component.

Details:

  • Author: Pinker, Steven
    Contributor: Morey, Arthur
    Date:
    Created
    2018
    Summary:

    The follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

    Contents:
    • Part I: Enlightenment
    • Dare to understand!
    • Entro, evo, info
    • Counter-enlightenments
    • Part II: Progress
    • Progressophobia
    • Life
    • Health
    • Sustenance
    • Wealth
    • Inequality
    • The environment
    • Peace
    • Safety
    • Terrorism
    • Democracy
    • Equal rights
    • Knowledge
    • Quality of life
    • Happiness
    • Existential threats
    • The future of progress
    • Part III: Reason, science, and humanism
    • Reason
    • Science
    • Humanism.
    Original Publisher: New York, Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Language(s): English
    ISBN: 9780525529804, 0525529802, 9780525529781, 0525529780, 9780141989167, 0141989165