Dr. Steven Pinker is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, whose books include The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. 

(00:00:00) In this episode

(00:00:11) Intro

(00:03:17) Chapter 1: Revisiting the Blank Slate 

(00:11:53) Chapter 2: Ideology, Progress, and Intellectual Resistance

(00:21:11) Chapter 3: Is Rationality Uncool? 

(00:36:28) Chapter 4: Reason as a Moral Virtue

(00:45:30) Chapter 5: Our Mismatch with the Modern World

(00:52:12) Chapter 6: AI, Music, and Constructive Optimism

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