Bøger af Steven Pinker

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018ONE OFTHE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR"e;My new favorite book of all time."e; --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: 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 nave 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.

'Dazzling...Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct...as innate to us as flying is to geese...Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'- Independent'A marvellously readable book...illuminates every facet of human language: its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects' - Nature

What is the secret of good prose? Does writing well even matter in an age of instant communication? Should we care? This book tells about the modern art of writing, and shows us why we all need a sense of style.

Can violence really have declined? The images of conflict we see daily on our screens from around the world suggest this is an almost obscene claim to be making. In this title, the author shows violence within and between societies - both murder and warfare.

'Powerful and gripping... To have read it is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche ... a glittering tour de force' Spectator Why do we laugh? What makes memories fade? Why do people believe in ghosts? From the acclaimed author of Enlightenment Now and Better Angels of Our Nature, How the Mind Works explores every aspect of mental life, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but a system of organs of computation designed by natural selection.'Pinker's objective in this erudite account is to explore the nature and history of the human mind ... He explores computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us "e;see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy' Sunday Times

'A passionate defence of the enduring power of human nature ... both life-affirming and deeply satisfying' Daily TelegraphRecently many people have assumed that we are blank slates shaped by our environment. But this denies the heart of our being: human nature. Violence is not just a product of society; male and female minds are different; the genes we give our children shape them more than our parenting practices. To acknowledge our innate abilities, Pinker shows, is not to condone inequality, but to understand the very foundations of humanity.'Brilliant ... enjoyable, informative, clear, humane' New Scientist'If you think the nature-nurture debate has been resolved, you are wrong ... this book is required reading' Literary Review'An original and vital contribution to science and also a rattling good read' Matt Ridley, Sunday Telegraph 'Startling ... This is a breath of air for a topic that has been politicized for too long' Economist

A brilliant inquiry into the origins of human nature from the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now."e;Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive."e; --Time Now updated with a new afterwordOne of the world's leading experts on language and the mind explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

The Stuff of Thought is an exhilarating work of non-fiction. Surprising, thought-provoking and incredibly enjoyable, there is no other book like it - Steven Pinker will revolutionise the way you think about language. He analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and he reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. He shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history. He also explores the emotional impact of language, from names to swear words, and shows us the full power that it can have over us. And, with this book, he also shows just how stimulating and entertaining language can be.

In a world driven by technology and ever-closer global networks, is humanity approaching a Golden Age, or is the notion of progress an illusion born in the West?

Collects for the first time Steven Pinker's most influential scholarly work on language and cognition. Pinker is a highly eminent cognitive scientist, and these essays emphasize the importance of language and its connections to cognition, social relationships, child development, human evolution, and theories of human nature.

A classic book about language acquisition and conceptual structure, with a new preface by the author, "The Secret Life of Verbs."

';Charming and erudite,"e; from the author of Enlightenment Now, "e;The wit and insight and clarity he brings . . . is what makes this book such a gem.' Time.comWhy is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writingand why should we care? From the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now.In this entertaining and eminently practical book, the cognitive scientist, dictionary consultant, and New York Timesbestselling author Steven Pinker rethinks the usage guide for the twenty-first century. Using examples of great and gruesome modern prose while avoiding the scolding tone and Spartan tastes of the classic manuals, he shows how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right. The Sense of Style is for writers of all kinds, and for readers who are interested in letters and literature and are curious about the ways in which the sciences of mind can illuminate how language works at its best.

';If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be thisthe most inspiring book I've ever read."e;Bill Gates (May, 2017)Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the YearThe author of Enlightenment Nowand The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millenia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesom punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the esesnce of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives--the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away--and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.

"In Words and Rules, Steven Pinker answers questions about the miraculous human ability called language, and does it in the gripping, witty style of his other bestsellers. Here Pinker explains the myst"

This Pulitzer Prize finalist is a fascinating, provocative work exploring the mysteries of human thought and behavior. Pinker synthesizes the best of cognitive science and evolutionary biology to explain what the mind is, how it has evolved, and, ultimately, how it works.