Steven Pinker

In Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (Due o tre cose che so di lei) di Jean-Luc Godard, il figlio di Juliette Janson (interpretata da Marina Vlady), domanda alla madre che cosa sia il linguaggio. Al che si sente rispondere dalla donna: «Le langage, c'est la maison dans laquelle l'homme habite». 1 Non vogliamo negare la carica metaforica dell'affermazione che Godard mette in bocca al personaggio della sua opera. Né tantomeno discutere (o negare) il valore citazionista della stessa affermazione, che si rifà alla massima di Martin Heidegger: «Il linguaggio è la casa dell'essere. Nella sua dimora abita l'uomo». 2 Tuttavia, la frase va certamente discussa e correttamente intesa a partire dal contesto in cui viene espressa: una volta fatto questo, forse sarà possibile approcciare in maniera diversamente problematica e problematizzante il particolare connubio che, come vedremo, Godard sostiene (con ben celato vigore) tra linguaggio e spazialità. Se i due coincidessero, in una qualche misura, il cambiamento dell'uno dovrebbe poter ripercuotersi sull'altro. Questo affiancamento in Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle non deve sorprendere, perché è tutt'altro che un'idea latente e casuale nata da una nostra intuizione durante la visione del film, o un'idea che trova la sua logica soltanto per la sua già citata carica metaforica: le ricorrenze sono troppe e troppo interessanti per essere semplici espressioni dominate da una volontà di esprimere in bella forma un pensiero. Godard crede veramente -o almeno lo credeva all'epoca 3 -che linguaggio e spazio siano legati a un certo livello. Basti pensare che qualche scena dopo quella da cui abbiamo tratto la frase con cui abbiamo iniziato quest'analisi, in un celebre passaggio, egli stesso con la sua propria voce (fuori campo) (ci) sussurrerà: «Dov'è l'inizio? L'inizio di cosa? Dio creò il cielo e la terra. Certo. E' comodo e facile. Si deve poter dire di meglio. Dire che i limiti della linguaggio sono quelli del mondo, che i limiti del mio linguaggio sono quelli del mio mondo e che parlando limito il mondo, lo finisco». 1 "Il linguaggio è la casa nella quale abita l'uomo". 2 Martin Heidegger, Lettera sull 'Umanismo, Adelphi, Milano 1995, pag. 1. 3 Il nostro dubbio nasce dal suo ultimo progetto, attualmente in lenta produzione, che riporta come titolo Adieu au langage. Fonti: The New Yorker (www.newyorker.

I start with some famous comments by the philosopher (psychologist) Ludwig Wittgenstein because Pinker shares with most people (due to the default settings of our evolved innate psychology) certain prejudices about the functioning of the mind and because Wittgenstein offers unique and profound insights into the workings of language, thought and reality (which he viewed as more or less coextensive) not found anywhere else. The last quote is the only reference Pinker makes to Wittgenstein in this volume, which is most unfortunate considering that he was one of the most brilliant and original analysts of language.

In the last chapter, using the famous metaphor of Plato’s cave, he beautifully summarizes the book with an overview of how the mind (language, thought, intentional psychology) –a product of blind selfishness, moderated only slightly by automated altruism for close relatives carrying copies of our genes--works automatically, but tries to end on an upbeat note by giving us hope that we can nevertheless employ its vast capabilities to cooperate and make the world a decent place to live.

Pinker is certainly aware of but says little about the fact that far more about our psychology is left out than included. Among windows into human nature that are left out or given minimal attention are math and geometry, music and sounds, images, events and causality, ontology (classes of things), dispositions (believing, thinking, judging, intending etc.) and the rest of intentional psychology of action, neurotransmitters and entheogens, spiritual states (e.g, satori and enlightenment, brain stimulation and recording, brain damage and behavioral deficits and disorders, games and sports, decision theory (incl. game theory and behavioral economics), animal behavior (very little language but a billion years of shared genetics). Many books have been written about each of these areas of intentional psychology. The data in this book are descriptions, not explanations that show why our brains do it this way or how it is done. How do we know to use the sentences in their various way (i.e., know all their meanings)? This is evolutionary psychology that operates at a more basic level –the level where Wittgenstein is most active. And there is scant attention to context.

Nevertheless this is a classic work and with these cautions is still well worth reading.

Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle 59p(2016).  For all my articles on Wittgenstein and Searle see my e-book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Wittgenstein and Searle 367p (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may consult my e-book  Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization  - Articles and Reviews 2006-2016  662p (2016).

All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. 

Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017)    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. 

  The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017)  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B.

Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017)    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX 

Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQVWV9C

Joseph Sverker explores the division between social constructivism and a biologist essentialism by means of Christian theology. For this, Sverker uses a fascinating approach: He lets critical theorist Judith Butler, psycholinguist Steven Pinker, and systematic theologian Colin Gunton interact. While theology plays a central part to make the interaction possible, the context is also that of the school and the effect of institutions on the pupil as a human being and learner.

In order to understand what underlies the division between nature and nurture, or biology and the social in school, Sverker develops new central concepts such as a kenotic personalism, a weak ontology of relationality, and a relational and performative reading of evolution. He argues that most fundamental for what it is to be human is the person, vulnerability, bodiliness, openness to the other, and dependence.

Sverker concludes that the division between constructivism and essentialism discloses a deeper divide, namely that between fundamentally vulnerable persons on the one hand and constructed independent individuals on the other.

An essay for undergraduates and nonacademics looking at the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth through the figurative lenses of Steven Pinker's THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED (over human history) and "Kilgore Trout's" imagined short story "The Gospel from Outer Space."

Draws the political conclusion  that "Zealots, thugs, and assassins must be removed from society, maybe even killed. But in 2013 and following we should look back on the two criminals on the cross and resolve never again to torment a bum or torture even terrorists."

Steven Pinker’s 2011 book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” is a multifaceted book, and one of the rare ones, which covers the religious, ethnic, linguistic, historical, political, social, economic, philosophical, evolutionary and psychological reasons, as to why humans have been so miserable to one another for most of recorded history. However, the conclusion of each chapter and even each topic within each chapter seems to be providing one with a sense of hope and optimism.

Each topic, whether it ranges from the Biblical times, to the Enlightenment period, to the modern times, starts off by describing, mostly in detail, the various ways in which humans have been horrible to one another. It however ends each discussion by detailing how our civilization has set itself upon a positive trajectory, and how humans have enabled themselves to prosper, grow and live.

There is indeed a logical and statistical case that proves that humans have become better not only to one another, but also have realized the consequences of their actions regarding the planet. This book may seem to be outdated regarding the situation that exists in the world of politics today. This is what makes “Enlightenment Now” such a well-timed book.

I consider Enlightenment Now to be a sequel and a summary to the Better Angels of Our Nature. Most critics have claimed that Steven Pinker’s tone regarding the situation in USA and the world seems to be that of complacency, neglect and ignorance. They allege that his perspective is rife with elitism, delusional optimism and privilege. These critics however miss the point of the book. Unlike its predecessor, which uses extensive levels of statistics to prove many arguments, Enlightenment Now is more about answering the insecurities people face in the chaos arising out of recent spike in populism, authoritarianism and partisan, negative, fake and critical news.

Enlightenment Now must not be interpreted in isolation from Steven Pinker’s larger contributions to the academic community. The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now are no recent thought experiments, but are part of a larger narrative that Pinker has been discussing for decades.

Despite the many remarkable achievements and milestones in human behavior and history, many powerful academic beliefs and arguments viz. a viz. human evolution (evolutionary, social, political, etc), are still based on the Standard Social Science Model of understanding human behavior. Thus, the evolution of both man and his surroundings are taught largely on the basis of cultural, social, and ethnic factors.

The document attached is a detailed, academic account of the origins of this skepticism, and how rational academics must respond to the resurgence of this trend.

In a time where the sole demonstration of violence, as in television and film but particularly in video games, is considered as trigger for killing sprees, but simultaneously domestic violence decreased; where wars are changing from interstate to a new transformed sort of civil wars with non-state parties, the mainly cognitive psycholinguist and interdisciplinary savant Steven Pinker hits the zeitgeist with a burning and buzz topic of his TED Talk held in September 2007.

Tesi di laurea triennale in Filosofia, presso l'Università degli Studi di Torino, relatore prof. Alberto Voltolini.

Considerando la Grammatica Universale come un modulo cerebrale che rende innata la nostra capacità di comprendere ed apprendere il linguaggio, resta da spiegare in che modo tale facoltà si sia evoluta. Nel testo si analizzano le tesi di Chomsky, elaborate in particolare nei primi anni duemila, con i biologi Hauser e Fitch, e le controproposte di Pinker e Jackendoff.

This paper looks at the three diagrams created by Pinker in his book, 'The Better Angels of Our Nature in Chapter Two. Focusing only on non-state societies’ statistics, this paper argues that while Pinker has grounds to assert that people living in non-state groups do and have engaged in violence towards one another and with outsider groups, it is another matter to make the more controversial claim that they are more violent societies. To paraphrase Pinker, people are more likely to face a violent death than if they were to endure the social contract and live under a Leviathan.

This thesis examines the problems and paradoxes relating to the role of imagination in human thinking and creativity.  The aim of this study is to come to an understanding of the imagination not as a separate ‘faculty’ of the human mind and, as such, inferior to reason, but rather reappraises imagination as fundamental for human cognition.  This enquiry considers the proposition that human cognition - the mind - functions in conjunction with the workings of the human body and brain.  The enquiry is divided into three parts.  Part One reconsiders the discussion of the imagination in philosophy, with a particular examination of Immanuel Kant.  Part Two explores the role of imagination and the biological sciences in writings on art and aesthetics.  The development of the discipline of art history is, thus, re-examined from the biological approaches employed in eighteenth-nineteenth-and early twentieth-century art writings.  Part Three analyses theories of the evolution of the human species in relation to the role of the imagination.  The coevolution of the human body, brain and mind is investigated and, subsequently, discussed as the basis for human creativity and art.  In conclusion, the incorporation of a biological approach to art history is advocated.

This article critically analyzes two leading cognitive scientists, George Lakoff and Steven Pinker, as competing secular political “theologians”. The idea of Science as savior is at the heart of the set of stories modernity tells about itself. The modern world, it is assumed, has left the age of religion and reached the age of Science. Lakoff and Pinker, who advocate opposing moral and political worldviews, make their claims on the basis of their scientific work, but it is implicit narratives and ontologies that give force to their broader views about morality and politics.

abstract: The evolution of human sociality is a field in ferment, with writers struggling to isolate elementary causal forces and organize them systematically. The elements of a usable model for evolved human sociality have become available only within the past few years. Those elements are scattered throughout the books here under review and a small set of articles. None of the books or articles fully exemplifies the whole model. After laying out the model, I use it to evaluate the books, describing how each contributes to it, and measuring each against it. The central idea in a usable model of human sociality is that the identity of the social group is integral to individual identity. In addition to that one central idea, a minimum of seven concepts is necessary to construct a model of sociality that includes the complex forms of organization in post-agricultural societies: (1) dominance, (2) egalitarianism or reverse dominance, (3) leadership, (4) internalized norms, (5) strong reciprocity or third-party enforcement of norms, (6) legal institutions, and (7) legitimacy in the exercise of power. These seven concepts can be reduced to four components: power, values, individuals, and groups. This model of evolved human sociality moves beyond the inconclusive debate between proponents of inclusive fitness and proponents of group selection. It also offers a distinct alternative to the identity politics that currently pervade literary and cultural study.

Bu makalede Karl Popper'ın yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesinden ve belirlediğim birkaç bilimsel bilgi ölçütü üzerinden psikoloji-psikanaliz bilim midir? sorusunu soracak ve kendimce cevaplamaya çalışacağım. Bunu yaparken Freud, Adler, Jung, Lacan gibi pek çok psikanalistin üzerinden geçmekle birlikte Skinner, Pinker gibi psikologlardan da faydalanacağım. Ayrıca yazı içerisinde klasik psikoloji ve modern psikolojinin ayrı olduklarını belirtecek, bunu da açıklamaya çalışacağım. Bunlara dikkat edilerek okunursa okuyucuya faydalı olabileceği inancındayım.

Özgürcan Şenbayrak @Mavi Artemis @Manikamoral

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This essay series, titled “Huxley, Dewey, and Pinker: Evolution, Science and Enlightenment - The Critical Virtue of Inquiry” examines the effort of Thomas Huxley, John Dewey, and Steven Pinker to account for and justify the transformative impact of Darwinian evolution upon the intellectual, emotional, and moral lives of humanity. The series explores the struggle of humanity first, to understand the cosmos that was revealed by the discoveries of Darwinian evolution, second, to manage the intellectual, emotional and moral implications of these discoveries, and third, to assess the dangers and the benefits of the processes of inquiry that created the revolution within which we all now must live.

In this paper, I evaluate Steven Pinker’s study with the title “The Better Angles of Our Nature. A history of violence and humanity”. In this study, Pinker optimistically argues that ‘violence of kinds’ is decreasing, and that we are now experiencing a ‘Long Peace’. I show that as far as war and the war dynamics of the System are concerned, this is not the case; to the contrary, the System is currently producing a fifth - a first global - war cycle. I show that Pinker’s optimistic interpretation is based on a wrong interpretation of war data, and the absence of a scientific theory: Pinker - and other historians - failed to identify that the System regulates its energy-state through an emergent self-reinforcing dynamic, consisting of accelerating war cycles with remarkable consistent properties.

The study of language has been historically proposed as a model for human sciences. For the structuralists, it is because languages, like society, and cultural habits , are man-made rule-based systems. For the Darwinists, it is because cultures and societies are like living species, and can be studied with biological methodology. Sociology, biology and linguistics are considered analogous in different ways. To support work in theoretical and applied linguistics, this paper discusses the problem of the nature of language, investigating how the question "What is language?" has been approached from different angles. Textbook answers guide us in many different directions: language is a tool for communication-and for thinking. It is a collection of words and instructions how to use them. It is the characteristic which-arguably separates humans from other animals. It is a social construction, a system of symbols, a system of systems, and so on. To classify perspectives, the intellectual history of schools of linguistic thought is examined, connecting linguistic theory with related disciplines. A taxonomy is proposed based on two axes: humanistic versus biological; and historical versus systemic. Main linguistics frameworks are identified and placed into a fourfold table based on these axes. They include the Bloomfieldian school (Type 1); Saussurean structuralism and its derivatives (Type 2); generative grammar and biolinguistics (Type 3); and cognitive-evolutionary linguistics (Type 4).

This paper briefly traces the origins of human dignity and its present-day usage. It then points out the different philosophical, historical, and ecological currents that minimize or deny dignity. In the
end, it presents a summary of a correct vision of human beings in relation to their surroundings from a Christian perspective.

Abstract: This essay surveys and assesses the roles of asses in _Don Quijote de la Mancha_. I argue that their ultimate significance derives from the picaresque tradition, specifically Apuleius’s _The Golden Ass_ and the anonymous _Lazarillo de Tormes_. Cervantes deploys picaresque asses as symbolic markers of: 1) his own aesthetic prowess, 2) his criticism of racial and ethnic intolerance, 3) his vision of compensated labor and economic exchange as the proper means of avoiding social conflict among Old Christians, conversos, and Moriscos. As opposed to the light and casual school of interpretation represented by critics like Auerbach, Spitzer, and Russell, I approach Cervantes’s great novel as a very serious satire against the ethnocentric, orthodox, and appropriative tendencies of early modern Spain.


Resumen: En este ensayo examino la función de los asnos en _Don Quijote de la Mancha_. Sostengo que su significado se deriva de la tradición de la novela picaresca, específicamente _El asno de oro_ de Apuleyo y _El Lazarillo de Tormes_ de autor anónimo. Cervantes despliega asnos picarescos como marcadores simbólicos de: 1) su propia destreza estética, 2) su crítica de la intolerancia étnica y racial, 3) su visión del trabajo compensado y el intercambio económico como los medios adecuados para evitar el conflicto social entre cristianos viejos, conversos y moriscos. A diferencia de la escuela de interpretación ligera representada por críticos como Auerbach, Spitzer y Russell, yo leo la gran novela de Cervantes como una grave sátira contra las tendencias racistas, ortodoxas y despojativas de la España de la temprana edad moderna.

Keywords: Don Quijote, Dulcinea, Cervantes, Apuleius, Mendoza, The Golden Ass, Lazarillo de Tormes, ass, mule, donkey, picaresque novel, history of the novel, comparative literature, satire, metalepsis, miscegenation, racism, orthodoxy, commerce, economics, Auerbach, mimesis, Inquisition, Moriscos, conversos, Old Christians, Neoplatonism, School of Salamanca, Juan de Mariana, Bartolomé de las Casas, El Greco, Velázquez.

Palabras clave: Don Quijote, Dulcinea, Cervantes, Apuleyo, Mendoza, Asno de oro, Lazarillo de Tormes, asno, burro, mula, novela picaresca, historia de la novela, literatura comparada, sátira, metalepsis, mestizaje, racismo, ortodoxia, comercio, economía, Auerbach, mímesis, Inquisición, moriscos, conversos, cristianos viejos, neoplatonismo, Escuela de Salamanca, Juan de Mariana, Bartolomé de las Casas, El Greco, Velásquez.

Il 22 novembre 2002 Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky e W. Tecumseh Fitch pubblicano, su “Science”, un articolo dal titolo “The Faculty of Language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?”.  Intendono: indirizzare le future ricerche sull'origine del linguaggio, stabilendone i confini; invitare a una maggiore collaborazione tra biologi, antropologi, etologi, neuroscienziati, filosofi. L'articolo dà il via a un acceso dibattito, interamente pubblicato su “Cognition”: gli autori riceveranno nell'agosto del 2004 una risposta da Steven Pinker e Ray Jackendoff, nell'articolo “The faculty of language: what’s special about it?”. L'invito a indagare in questo campo da parte di Hauser, Chomsky e Fitch non viene solamente accolto: le teorie e le proposte iniziali sono infatti duramente criticate. A questa prima risposta seguiranno altri due documenti, pubblicati rispettivamente nel febbraio del 2005 (Fitch, Hauser e Chomsky) e nell'aprile dello stesso anno (Jackendoff e Pinker). Questa tesi intende essere un'analisi di questi quattro articoli anche epistemologica, confrontandoli e tentando di proporre un possibile livello di dialogo.

In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker puts forward a vision of the Middle Ages that is both grim and fearsome. He writes that '[m]edieval Christendom was a culture of cruelty' in which 'brutality' was 'woven into the fabric of daily existence'. 1 In a sketch from Das Mittelalterliche Hausbuch (The medieval housebook) depicting what Pinker describes as a scene from daily life, warlords terrorize the lower classes: 'a peasant is stabbed by a soldier; above him, another peasant is restrained by his shirttail while a woman, hands in the air, cries out. At the lower right, a peasant is being stabbed in a chapel while his possessions are plundered, and nearby another peasant in fetters is cudgeled by a knight.' 2 Violence pervaded every aspect of life: religion ('bloody crucifixes, threats of eternal damnation, and prurient depictions of mutilated saints'), travel ('[b]rigands made travel a threat to life and limb, and ransoming captives was big business'), domestic living ('even the little people, too-the hatters, the tailors, the shepherds-were all quick to draw their knives') and entertainment (throwing cats into bags, or beating pigs to death). 3 The government behaved no better than its subjects. Medieval Europeans suffered 'centuries of institutionalized sadism', in which torture was practised as a cruel art and '[e]xecutions were orgies of sadism'. 4 Admittedly, for Pinker, this hyperviolent portrayal of the Middle Ages is a usable past. He is eager to tell his audience a shocking story. Dusting off Norbert Elias' hoary thesis, Pinker sees history as a story of progress, with occasional fits and starts and some moments of distinct regression, in which humanity engages slowly but resolutely in a civilizing process. Not only have we refined our manners and hygiene (a subject upon which Pinker deliberates with glee and graphic detail) but we have learned the necessity of restraint when it comes to emotion and physical response. At the heart of this evolution is the discovery of empathy.

The Transient Suppression of the Worst Devils of our Nature—a review of Steven Pinker’s ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined’(2012)
This is not a perfect book, but it is unique, and if you skim the first 400 or so pages, the last 300 (of some 700) are a pretty good attempt to apply what's known about behavior to social changes in violence and manners over time. The basic topic is: how does our genetics control and limit social change? Surprisingly he fails to describe the nature of kin selection (inclusive fitness) which explains much of animal and human social life. He also (like nearly everyone) lacks a clear framework for describing the logical structure of rationality (LSR—John Searle’s preferred term) which I prefer to call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). He should have said something about the many other ways of abusing and exploiting people and the planet, since these are now so much more severe as to render other forms of violence irrelevant. Extending the concept of violence to include the global long term consequences of replication of someone’s genes, and having a grasp of the nature of how evolution works (i.e., kin selection) will provide a very different perspective on history, current events, and how things are likely to go in the next few hundred years. One might start by noting that the decrease in physical violence over history has been matched (and made possible) by the constantly increasing merciless rape of the planet (i.e., by people's destruction of their own descendants future). Pinker (like most people most of the time) is often distracted by the superficialities of culture when it’s biology that matters. See my recent reviews of Wilson’s ‘The Social Conquest of Earth’ and Nowak and Highfield’s ‘SuperCooperators’ for a brief summary of the vacuity of altruism and the operation of kin selection and the uselessness and superficiality of describing behavior in cultural terms.
Extending the concept of violence to include the global long term consequences of replication of someone’s genes, and having a grasp of the nature of how evolution works (i.e., kin selection) will provide a very different perspective on history, current events, and how things are likely to go in the next few hundred years. One might start by noting that the decrease in physical violence over history has been matched (and made possible) by the constantly increasing merciless rape of the planet (i.e., by people's destruction of their own descendants future). Pinker (like most people most of the time) is often distracted by the superficialities of culture when it’s biology that matters. See my recent reviews of Wilson’s ‘The Social Conquest of Earth’ and Nowak and Highfield’s ‘SuperCooperators’ for a brief summary of the vacuity of altruism and the operation of kin selection and the uselessness and superficiality of describing behavior in cultural terms.

This is the classic nature/nurture issue and nature trumps nurture --infinitely. What really matters is the violence done to the earth by the relentless increase in population and resource destruction (due to medicine and technology and conflict suppression by police and military). About 200,000 more people a day (another Las Vegas every 10 days, another Los Angeles every month), the 12 tons or so of topsoil going into the sea/person/year etc. mean that unless some miracle happens the biosphere and civilization will largely collapse in the next two centuries and there will be starvation, misery and violence of every kind on a staggering scale.
People's manners, opinions and tendencies to commit violent acts are of no relevance unless they can do something to avoid this catastrophe, and I don't see how that is going to happen. There is no space for arguments, and no point either (yes I'm a fatalist), so I'll just make a few comments as though they were facts. Don't imagine I have a personal stake in promoting one group at the expense of others. I am 75, have no descendants and no close relatives and do not identify with any political, national or religious group and regard the ones I belong to by default as just as repulsive as all the rest.

Parents are the worst Enemies of Life on Earth and, taking the broad view of things, women are as violent as men when one considers the fact that women's violence (like most of that done by men) is largely done in slow motion, at a distance in time and space and mostly carried out by proxy -by their descendants and by men. Increasingly, women bear children regardless of whether they have a mate and the effect of stopping one woman from breeding is on average much greater than stopping one man, since they are the reproductive bottleneck. One can take the view that people and their offspring richly deserve whatever misery comes their way and (with rare exceptions) the rich and famous are the worst offenders. Meryl Streep or Bill Gates and each of their kids may destroy 50 tons of topsoil each per year for generations into the future, while an Indian farmer and his may destroy 1 ton. If someone denies it that's fine, and to their descendants I say "Welcome to Hell on Earth"(WTHOE).

The emphasis nowadays is always on Human Rights, but it is clear that if civilization is to stand a chance, Human Responsibilities must replace Human Rights. Nobody gets rights without being a responsible citizen and the first thing this means is minimal environmental destruction . The most basic responsibility is no children unless your society asks you to produce them. A society or a world that lets people breed at random will always be exploited by selfish genes until it collapses (or reaches a point where life is so horrific it's not worth living). If society continues to maintain Human Rights as primary, that's fine and to their descendants one can say with confidence "WTHOE".

Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019)

Steven Pinker, like Hume and many other moderns, claims that reason can be applied only to means, not ends (except when ends are conflicting). This review argues that reason should be applied to both ends and means and explains the philosophical basis for this conclusion.

La teoría evolutiva de los juegos nos brinda conceptos que son imprescindibles para entender cómo pudo haber evolucionado la moral en los animales. Se puede  simular online en un navegador web estrategias evolutivas: https://grandes-chicos-comparten-pelea.herokuapp.com/ . Tal vez pueda ayudar a poner en cuestión la ideología de género, pensar si en realidad existe algo como el patriarcado y porque las políticas de genero muestran ser tan ineficaces. La Teoría Evolutiva de los Juegos fue creada por John Maynard Smith y se hizo muy conocida con el libro El Gen Egoísta de Richard Dawkins. En este trabajo implementa varios juegos clásicos de la teoría evolutiva de los juegos. Siguiendo el libro Evolución y Teoría de los Juegos de John Maynard Smith, empiezo simulando una población donde todos los individuos son iguales y existen solo 2 estrategias para resolver conflictos, compartir y pelear. Luego agregaremos una diferencia arbitraria entre los individuos, por ejemplo, individuos que son residente e individuos que son intrusos. Usaremos esa diferencia arbitraria entre los individuos para definir estrategias condicionales. Una estrategia condicional es una estrategia del tipo "si tu oponente es intruso pelea en caso contrario comparte". Después veremos qué sucede cuando se convierte la diferencia arbitraria en una diferencia que influyen en el resultado de una pelea, por ejemplo, hay individuos grandes y chicos, y estrategias condicionales en estrategia condicional de sentido común y estrategia condicional paradójica. Por últimos consideremos una población formada por individuos distintos, por ejemplo machos y hembras, pero donde cada tipo de individuo tiene diferente conjunto de estrategias, por ejemplo, los machos no pueden usar las estrategias "fieles" y "atorrantes", y hembras que sólo pueden usar las estrategias "fáciles" y "esquivas". En la implementación nos encontramos con problemas que tuvimos que resolver, por ejemplo, si los individuos más aptos tienen 2, o más descendientes, el crecimiento es exponencial y en pocas generaciones nos quedamos sin recursos. Luego analizamos cuáles son las capacidades cognitivas mínimas que tienen que tener los organismos simulados, cómo influye la distancia mínima que tienen que estar dos individuos para que surja un conflicto, los juego de halcones y palomas, el dilema del prisionero repetido, algunas condiciones para que pueda surgir la cooperación en individuos que no están relacionados genéticamente, guerra de desgaste, carrera armamentística, juegos asimétricos y simétricos. Si la mitad de la población comparte y la otra mitad pelea ¿qué sucederá si la población se deja evolucionar? Si la población está formada inicialmente por n individuos chicos que pelean solo si su oponente es más grande y por k individuos grandes que pelean solo si su oponente es más chico ¿luego de varias generaciones de evolución, como estará formada la población? Nos preguntamos qué sucede con distintas poblaciones a las que se las deja evolucionar. Se realizan varias simulaciones y se analiza los resultados obtenidos.

The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the most popular podcasts on the web, reaching 10s of millions of viewers per month. Rogan discusses a wide variety of topics with a variety of guests, some of them friends who appear regularly: martial arts, comedy, nutrition and health, conspiracy theories, psychedelic drugs, and a variety of science topics. In this paper I discuss several specific podcasts, with: Steven Pinker (his latest book, Enlightenment Now), Michael Pollan (psychedelic drugs), Neil deGrasse Tyson (moon landing), Howard Bloom (music, altered states, space program), Joey Diaz (Bruce Lee and martial arts), and Elon Musk (AI). I also include an annotated transcription of the Joey Diaz conversation.

Lecture slides for a course on "War in Literature" (Winter 2022). War has profoundly shaped human history and experience. The history of war presents us with the spectre of unspeakable carnage and death. War forces us to confront our human finitude and mortality in a way that the life of peace does not. Literary narrative is an important means by which we shape our understanding of the meaning of war and of our finite human existence. The literary tradition provides various historical attempts to find meaning in the face of the suffering and loss of life resulting from war.

The lecture explores at a high level the different ways works of literature have charted paths for this understanding of the meaning of the suffering and loss resulting from war. In classical works of literature, war arises as an arena in which one’s life can be defined by glory, honour and duty. In modern works of literature, war is ultimately meaningless and bereft of any higher significance.

我首先从哲学家(心理学家)路德维希·维特根斯坦的一些著名评论开始,因为平克与大多数人(由于我们进化的先天心理学的默认设置)分享了对心灵功能的某些偏见,以及因为维特根斯坦提供了独特而深刻的见解,了解语言、思想和现实(他认为或多或少是共性)在其他地方所没有的。本卷只提到维特根斯坦,这是最不幸的,因为他是最聪明和原始的语言分析家。

在最后一章中,他用柏拉图洞穴的著名比喻,完美地概括了这本书,概述了头脑(语言、思想、故意心理)——盲目自私的产物,只是通过自动利他主义来缓和。携带我们基因副本的亲戚(包容性健身)——自动工作,但试图以乐观的结局结束,给我们希望,我们仍然可以利用其巨大的能力进行合作,使世界成为一个体面的生活场所。

平克当然知道,但很少说,我们的心理被遗漏了比包括更多。在人类自然的窗口,被排除在外或给予最少的关注是数学和几何,音乐和声音,图像,事件和因果关系,本体论(类的东西或我们所知道的),大多数认识论(我们如何知道),处置(相信,思考,判断,打算等)和行动,神经递质和内生,精神状态(如,萨托里和启蒙,大脑刺激和记录,脑损伤和行为的故意心理学的其余部分缺陷和障碍,游戏和运动,决策理论(包括博弈论和行为经济学),动物行为(很少语言,但10亿年的共同遗传学)。许多关于有意心理学领域的书籍已经写好了。本书中的数据是描述,而不是说明为什么我们的大脑这样做或它是如何做到的解释。我们怎么知道用各种方式使用句子(即,知道它们的所有含义)？这是进化心理学,在更基本的水平运作——维特根斯坦最活跃的水平。人们对使用词语的背景关注甚少——这是维特根斯坦开创的舞台。

然而,这是一部经典作品,这些警告仍然值得一读。

那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-2019年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日 (2019)

Se percibe una relación entre la dinámica de fuerzas de la tragedia shakespeareana, según el análisis de A. C. Bradley, y los análisis de la estructura semántica de la causalidad en argumentos verbales o construcciones preposicionales, tal como los analizan los lingüistas cognitivos Steven Pinker y Len Talmy. Estructuras lingüísticas y textuales a diversos niveles de complejidad se basan en esquemas cognitivos comparables que permiten interpretar la acción, los procesos y relaciones, y la experiencia, mediante su representación esquemática.

Steven Pinker argues that alcoholism has been demoralized; it is a disease and that we no longer view it as a moral failure. This however is incongruent with the attitudes that alcoholics face when they try to recover at Alcoholics Anonymous. At AA, their disease of alcoholism is moralized, which the alcoholics prefer. This paper explores why.

Το ερώτημα πώς μπορούν να προσδιοριστούν οι λειτουργίες του νου και σύμφωνα με ποιες αρχές θα ήταν χρήσιμο να κατηγοριοποιηθούν είναι διττό και αφορά τόσο στην επιστήμη, όσο και την φιλοσοφία: στην πρώτη, εφόσον μέλημά της είναι η αναζήτηση συμπερασμάτων διαμέσου του πειράματος και της ανάλυσης και στην δεύτερη, εφόσον η αποσαφήνιση επιστημονικών εννοιών και ορισμών διευθετείται κυρίως φιλοσοφικά. Προϋπόθεση για μία τέτοια συσχέτιση είναι οι αρχές της επιστήμης να συμβαδίζουν προς τις αρχές της εμπειρίας και οι κατευθύνσεις της φιλοσοφίας να μην αντίκειται προς τους όρους του επιστημονικού πειράματος: να προσφέρει δηλαδή, η φιλοσοφία, τους ορισμούς της πραγματικότητας, σύμφωνα με τους επιστημονικούς κανόνες που διέπουν αυτούς τους ορισμούς. Επιστήμη και φιλοσοφία οφείλουν να ενσωματώνουν και να γενικεύουν πληροφορίες κατά τρόπο ανάλογο προς τις προτάσεις και της εκφράσεις μιας φυσικής γλώσσας. Ωστόσο, σε μία εποχή όπου τα συμπεράσματα της επιστήμης ξεπερνούν την δυνατότητα των αισθήσεων να ανατρέχουν  σε προϋπάρχουσες εμπειρίες και να επιβεβαιώνονται διαμέσου αυτών, δημιουργούνται συζητήσεις γύρω από το εάν η φιλοσοφία, μπορεί να συνεχίσει να στέκεται δίπλα στην εννοιολογική γνώση και να ταξινομεί με ακρίβεια τα αποτελέσματά της. Εξετάζοντας το σύνολο των σχέσεων μεταξύ αισθητικών και λογικών μορφών, στην μελέτη που ακολουθεί θα εξηγήσουμε γιατί η φιλοσοφία, διαμέσου μιας μεθοδολογίας που είναι αποτέλεσμα ιστορικής κληρονομιάς αλλά και κοινωνικής πρακτικής, όχι μόνον αφήνει χώρο, αλλά ενθαρρύνει την δημιουργία νέων συντακτικών σχέσεων με την επιστήμη, ανοίγοντας δρόμο για την αισθητική κατανόηση της επιστημονικής μέτρησης, αλλά και της ειδικής φύσης του μετρούμενου.

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, conflict has changed dramatically. Some scholars such as Steven Pinker argue the world has become more peaceful; whereas others such as Mary Kaldor suggest that warfare has instead progressed into more sophisticated forms of ‘New Wars’.  This essay seeks to explain how the nature of conflict has developed, and whether New Wars Theory accurately explains post-Cold War trends in conflict.

Beliefs can unite or divide us, build societies or destroy them. This book helps harness the power of beliefs by explaining what they are. What they do. How they work. And how we can bridge the chasm of mistrust.

Kirkus Reviews said: "Expertly surveys the historical development of belief ... navigates turbid academic waters with informality and light-handed grace ... A thoughtful consideration of torrid intellectual disputes."

Foreword Reviews said: "Well-reasoned and thoughtful ... Shows it's possible even for those who hold vastly different beliefs to engage in convivial, rational, and reasonable discussions ... not only interesting, but vital to living."

Readers said: "I got a kick out of the chapter on Spinoza. It's quite a feat how the book bridges the gap between the ancients and the moderns." "Using a dash of humor and an accessible style of writing, this will delight fans of books like Yuval Harari's Sapiens. Highly Recommended."

Steven Pinker's main argument in the analysis is that by understanding the evolutionary roots of morality and by studying our own moral tendencies, we are able to best subjectively understand from an out-sider's perspective our behaviors and the behaviors of those around us. This process invites readers to pursue a greater degree of empathy for changing habits of moral behavior and conflict in society.