Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Edge of Reason - A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World - cover

The Edge of Reason - A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Julian Baggini

Publisher: Yale University Press

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

An urgent defense of reason, the essential method for resolving—or even discussing—divisive issues: “A timely masterpiece.”—Patricia S. Churchland, author of Touching a Nerve Reason, long held as the highest human achievement, is under siege. According to Aristotle, the capacity for reason sets us apart from other animals, yet today it has ceased to be a universally admired faculty. Rationality and reason have become political, disputed concepts, subject to easy dismissal.   Julian Baggini argues eloquently that we must recover our reason and reassess its proper place, neither too highly exalted nor completely maligned. Rationality does not require a cold, sterile worldview—it simply involves the application of critical thinking wherever thinking is needed. Addressing such major areas of debate as religion, science, politics, psychology, and economics, the author calls for commitment to the notion of a “community of reason,” where disagreements are settled by debate and discussion, not brute force or political power. Baggini’s insightful book celebrates the power of reason, our best hope—indeed our only hope—for dealing with the intractable quagmires of our time.   “The toxic gloating of ‘gut feelings,’ hateful politics and heart-over-head attacks on good sense urgently need an antidote. Baggini has risen to the occasion…compelling.”—Patricia S. Churchland, author of Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition
Available since: 09/22/2016.
Print length: 273 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Harvest the Vote - How Democrats Can Win Again in Rural America - cover

    Harvest the Vote - How Democrats...

    Jane Kleeb

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    From Democratic Party rising star Jane Kleeb, an urgent and stirring road map showing how the Democratic Party can, and should, engage rural America 
     
    The Democratic Party has lost an entire generation of rural voters. By focusing the majority of their message and resources on urban and coastal voters, Democrats have sacrificed entire regions of the country where there is more common ground and shared values than what appears on the surface. 
    In Harvest the Vote, Jane Kleeb, chair of Nebraska’s Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, brings us a lively and sweeping argument for why the Democrats shouldn’t turn away from rural America. As a party leader and longtime activist, Kleeb speaks from experience. She’s been fighting the national party for more resources and building a grassroots movement to flex the power of a voting bloc that has long been ignored and forgotten.  
    Kleeb persuasively argues that the hottest issues of the day can be solved hand in hand with rural people. On climate change, Kleeb shows that the vast spaces of rural America can be used to enact clean energy innovations. And issues of eminent domain and corporate overreach will galvanize unlikely alliances of family farmers, ranchers, small business owners, progressives, and tribal leaders, much as they did when she helped fight the Keystone XL pipeline. The hot-button issues of guns and abortion that the Republican Party uses to wedge voters against one another can be bridged by putting a megaphone next to issues critical to rural communities. 
    Written with a fiery voice and commonsense solutions, Harvest the Vote is both a call to action and a much-needed balm for a highly divided nation.
    Show book
  • Spies on Trial - True Tales of Espionage in the Courtroom - cover

    Spies on Trial - True Tales of...

    Cecil C. Kuhne III

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Cecil C. Kuhne III describes a number of historical, law changing judicial cases, well-publicized criminal trials of those accused of treason against the United States, as well as lawsuits concerning other unusual matters, such as the governmental restrictions on bugging and other surveillance devices that cannot be sold to the general public. The author successfully explores well known espionage cases, such as the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell trial of 1951, as well as more recent cases where the courts have dealt with the activities of the National Security Administration (NSA) as they monitor telephone communications in their efforts to apprehend terrorist organizations. 
     
     
     
    Spies on Trial brings the listener fast-paced stories of foreign spies engaged in daring deeds of sleuthing that undoubtedly have more than their fair share of intriguing moments. But nowhere is this suspense more intense than inside the courtroom, where the drama of intense covert activities is fully unfurled, offering fascinating glimpses into this vast and nefarious underground world of international espionage.
    Show book
  • Guardian of the Republic - An American Ronin's Journey to Faith Family and Freedom - cover

    Guardian of the Republic - An...

    Allen West

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Over the course of the past few decades, Allen West has had many titles bestowed on him, among them Lt. Colonel, U.S. Representative, "Dad," and Scourge of the Far Left. He rose from humble beginnings in Atlanta where his father instilled in him a code of conduct that would inform his life ever after. Throughout his years leading troops, raising a loving family, serving as Congressman in Florida's 22nd district, and emerging as one of the most authentic voices in conservative politics, West has never compromised the core values on which he was raised: family, faith, tradition, service, honor, fiscal responsibility, courage, freedom. 
      
    Today, these values are under attack as never before, and as the far Left intensifies its assaults, few have been as vigorous as West in pushing back. He refuses to let up, calling out an Obama administration that cares more about big government than following the Constitution, so-called black "leaders" who sell out their communities in exchange for pats on the head, and a segment of the media that sees vocal black conservatives as threats to be silenced. 
      
    Now more than ever, the American republic needs a guardian: a principled, informed conservative who understands where we came from, who can trace the philosophical roots of our faith and freedom, and who has a plan to get America back on track. West isn't afraid to speak truth to power, and in this book he'll share the experiences that shaped him and the beliefs he would die to defend.
    Show book
  • The Good Country Equation - How We Can Repair the World in One Generation - cover

    The Good Country Equation - How...

    Simon Anholt

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    "Not only does Anholt explain the challenges facing the world with unique clarity, he also provides genuinely new, informative, practical, innovative solutions. . . . The book is a must-read for anyone who cares about humanity's shared future." 
    -H. E. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (Farmaajo), President of the Federal Republic of Somalia 
     
     
    Why doesn't the world work? Why, despite all the power, technology, money and knowledge that humanity has accumulated, are we are still unable to defeat global challenges like climate change, war, poverty, migration, extremism, and inequality? 
     
    Simon Anholt has spent decades helping countries from Austria to Zambia to improve their international standing. Using colorful descriptions of his experiences-dining with Vladimir Putin at his country home, taking a group of Felipe Calderon's advisors on their first Mexico City subway ride, touring a beautiful new government hospital in Afghanistan that nobody would use because it was in Taliban-controlled territory-he tells how he began finding answers to that question. 
     
    Ultimately, Anholt hit on the Good Country Equation, a formula for encouraging international cooperation and reinventing education for a globalized era. Anholt even offers a "selfish" argument for cooperation: he shows that it generates goodwill, which in turn translates into increased trade, foreign investment, tourism, talent attraction, and even domestic electoral success. Arnholt insists we can change the way countries behave and the way people are educated in a single generation-because that's all the time we have.
    Show book
  • Summary Analysis & Review of Christopher H Achen's & Larry M Bartels's Democracy for Realists - cover

    Summary Analysis & Review of...

    Instaread

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Summary, Analysis & Review of Christopher H. Achen’s & Larry M. Bartels’s Democracy for Realists by Instaread 
     
     
     
    Preview: 
     
     
     
    Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government offers a critique of conventional wisdom surrounding popular theories of democracy. Authors Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that the public, journalists, and political scientists rely on a group of common-sense understandings of democracy. The authors collectively refer to these beliefs as the “folk theory” of democracy. The folk theory presumes that people behave as engaged citizens and that election outcomes reflect public policy preferences. This assumption is inaccurate and misleading, and therefore presents a danger to democracy. 
     
    Political scientists have tried in various ways to validate or systematize the intuitions on which the folk theory in based. Anthony Downs put forward a spatial model of voting, which supposes that individuals vote for the politicians who are closest to their own policy preferences. According to that theory, victorious politicians are the ones who can best align their policies with those… 
     
     
     
    PLEASE NOTE: This is a Summary, Analysis & Review of the book and NOT the original book. 
     
     
     
    Inside this Summary, Analysis & Review of Christopher H. Achen’s & Larry M. Bartels’s Democracy for Realists by Instaread 
     
     
     
    · Overview of the Book 
     
    · Important People 
     
    · &nbs
    Show book
  • The Buck Stops Here - The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed History - cover

    The Buck Stops Here - The 28...

    Thomas J. Craughwell, Edwin Kiester

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    This book vividly captures twenty-eight pivotal moments in American presidential history—from the Louisiana Purchase to JFK’s pledge to put a man on the moon. It is often said that the United States presidency is the most powerful office in the world. Various presidents have wielded that power in different ways, changing the course of history with a single decision, speech, or signature. The Buck Stops Here examines twenty-eight of these iconic events, giving readers an insider’s view of how and why these decisions were made, and providing insight into the corridors of power within the White House. Thomas J. Craughwell and Edwin Kiester Jr. delve into Jefferson’s acquisition of vast new territory with the Louisiana Purchase and Lincoln’s abolition of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. They shed light on the establishment of enduring institutions such as Medicare and America’s national parks. They also look at initiatives that reverberated worldwide, including Theodore Roosevelt’s construction of the Panama Canal, Harry S. Truman’s deployment of the atom bomb, Richard Nixon’s visit to China, and John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon. Each chapter presents the issues at stake, and analyzes the enduring, sometimes unforeseen consequences of these presidential decisions—in their own time, and right up to the present day.
    Show book