Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
Interpretation
Reason is an essential tool for argument and understanding; rejecting it undermines one's own position.
In this quote, Steven Pinker emphasizes the fundamental role of reason in human discourse and knowledge. He argues that attempting to dismiss reason from an argument is inherently contradictory, as the very act of making that dismissal relies on reasoning itself. Therefore, reason should not be viewed as a matter of belief, but as an essential foundation upon which all rational discourse and understanding are built.
In practice
In a debate on the importance of rational thought, this quote highlights why reason is vital.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
The future is neither ahead nor behind, on one side or another. Nor is it dark or light. It is contained within ourselves; its evil and good are perpetually within us.
There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.
Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.
The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.
Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident,real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.