Steven Pinker On Reason | Big Think
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- Опубликовано: 22 апр 2012
- Steven Pinker On Reason
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Free will exists, but by no means is it a miracle.We use "free will" to describe the more complex processes by which behavior is selected in the brain. These neurological steps taken to make decisions respect all laws of physics."Free will wouldn't be worth having or extolling, in moral discussions, if it didn't respond to expectations of reward, punishment, praise, blame," Pinker says.
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STEVEN PINKER:
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
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TRANSCRIPT:
STEVEN PINKER: I do believe that there is such a thing as free will but by that I do not mean that there is some process that defies the laws of physical cause and effect. As my colleague Joshua Greene once put it, it is not the case that every time you make a decision a miracle occurs. So I don't believe that. I believe that decisions are made by neurophysiological processes in the brain that respect all the laws of physics. On the other hand it is true that when I decide what to say next when I pick an item from a menu for dinner it's not the same as when the doctor hits my kneecap with a hammer and my knee jerks. It's just a different physiological process and one of them we use the word free will to characterize the more deliberative, slower, more complex process by which behavior is selected in the brain.
That process involves the aggregation of many diverse kinds of information - our memory, our goals, our current environment, our expectation of how other people will judge that action. Those are all information streams that affect that process. It's not completely predictable in that there may be random or chaotic or nonlinear effects that mean that even if you put the same person in the same circumstance multiple times they won't make the same choice every time. Identical twins who have almost identical upbringings, put them in the same chair, face them with the same choices. They may choose differently. Again, that's not a miracle. That doesn't mean that there is some ghost in the machine that is somehow pushing the neural impulses around. But it just means that the brain like other complex systems is subject to some degree of unpredictability. At the same time free will wouldn't be worth having and certainly wouldn't' be worth extolling in world discussions if it didn't respond to expectations of reward, punishment, praise, blame.
When we say that someone - we're punishing or rewarding someone based on what they chose to do we do that in the hope that that person and other people who hear about what happens will factor in how their choices will be treated by others and therefore there'll be more likely to do good things and less likely to do bad things in the expectation that if they choose beneficial actions better things will happen to them. So paradoxically one of the reasons that we want free will to exist is that it be determined by the consequences of those choices. And on average it does. People do obey the laws more often than not. They do things that curry favor more often than they bring proprium on their heads but not with 100 percent predictability. So that process is what we call free will. It's different from many of the more reflexive and predictable behaviors that we can admit but it does not involve a miracle.
"Faith means believing in something with no good reason to do it." This is a monumental statement.
This is not what faith means at all.
@@emmashalliker6862
You're right! Faith is pretending to know things you don't know.
The USSR was a secular state, it did a great deal of damage.
Does our faith in liberal democracy cause us to invade nations for no good reason?
Faith is believing in an unobservable reason.
I think exactly like this but could never put this thought so well into words.
This guy is a great thinker of the modern age
.
I'm glad we have people like Steven Pinker, we can't all use so much time thinking, bbut we can try to learn from those that do.
You do not need to agree with everything, just the prosess of trying, helps us become better humans.
Rob Lowe went for the subtle angle for this role. Absolute legend!
Distilled perfectly for my palate. I wholeheartedly agree that understanding the human condition is the doorway to everything else and this was demonstrated here beautifully.
I would say that in order for society to advance, a solid foundation of sound tradition is necessary. From that base, we can look forward and build on the foundation. I think it's appropriate to look back occasionally and remember why we believe what we believe, but if the reason behind the tradition is forgotten, it is not logical to assume that it no longer exists. More often today, we forget part of the reason, and reject the tradition for what we think it is, rather than what it actually is.
I freaking love this man
Well reason is simply defining an outcome either presumed or realized based on events or application of language congruent with circumstances and observation or foreknowledge of how these actions or words affect a given subject in turn. Faith and belief itself is derived not from bribery in any context.
Did I hear him say "hitting someone with a chair"?
Must be a big fan.
Tact - making a point without making an enemy.
Tradition by definition IS treacherous. It appropriates new life and stultifies critical scrutiny, imposing all manner of beliefs, practices & perceptions before the faculty for reasoning peak.
Enlightenment is a rational process of scrutiny, independent of any authority, faith or belief systems and must be verifiable in an individual's life.
Human flourishing in essence is the absence of conflict & isms so individual, social & global integration can occur. A radical imperative I would say.
Really surprising! ...are we committed to reason? Maybe, to some extent. It seems we are still very emotional beings though...
I take a bit of an exception to Steven Pinker's assertion, in the second to last section, that the United States reflects "the ideas of the enlightenment". It seems that we fall down in practicing these ideals such as tolerance towards minorities, science over religious dogma, elections fairly reflecting the will of the people. We are the only country in the world where the notion of climate change is routinely challenged by politicians and disbelieved by many people. We have the highest rate of gun violence and the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The rich individuals and corporations have bought out our elections and successfully lobby for their selfish advantages at the expense the general citizenry. Science in the form of evolution is expunged from some textbooks in favor of Bible-based "intelligent design". African Americans routinely suffer discrimination in many forms. Gay people are openly persecuted and discriminated against in many parts of the country. No one can be elected to office at a national level who does not claim to be Christian or some close variant like Jewish. 4 in 10 American adults believe we are living in "end times" (meaning Jesus will return to earth soon, not climate change destroying the planet). At best, all we can say is that we are closer to the enlightenment ideals than some other countries. A lot of our opinion about us reflecting the enlightenment is perhaps through cherry picked examples belied by the negative exceptions which we wish to exclude from our self assessment. We should work on ourselves to better reflect those values and through that we can bring the others along (except for the countries which are already ahead of us. Please feel free to disagree. I would love to be challenged so that I can further my thinking on this topic.
The enlightenment is a statement about Western culture, not just America.
I believe it too but that's really because I don't have any reason to doubt it, and more generally because I read his books and occasionally follow up on a footnote - which points to a peer-reviewed study that you can't really argue with. I generally trust him for that and other reasons, but we disagree on a few things.
Now if Pinker started talking about how he walked on water last night, then I have a good reason to doubt it and my trust in his statements would go down. All 'seen' stuff.
good point, perhaps i should have said when applied reason trumps everything.
I would call that faith. That "high degree of confidence" is the best we can get to in many cases. Even though we apply a high burden of proof on scientific data, we can still prove beyond a "reasonable" doubt (not beyond "any" doubt), that a claim is true. Historians apply a different burden of proof, but manage to sketch together what "more likely than not" happened. We have "faith" that the Civil War occurred, because we have letters, eyewitness accounts, and artifacts that support the story.
Good video thanks
how they should lead their lives. That simply is a very clever way of validating or reinforcing ones’ own adopted values. Alternatives are a consequence not a conclusion to strive for. Who knows what the consequence of enlightenment will be. What is clear is that the malaise that has the world in its grasp mirrors our own psychological state. Faith plays no part in how or what I think. The brain
doesn’t need “me” to function or scrutinize.
"Fr. Barron comments on What Faith Is and What Faith Isn't "
Fr. Robert Barron: MA Philosophy, Licentiate of Sacred Theology, Doctor of Sacred Theology, and fluent in French, Spanish, German and Latin (according to wiki)
indeed
I think we're doing the same thing then, seeking the best explanation in our limited ways.
Well I read the bible too (as well as the Koran, bits of the Egyptian book of the dead, etc) and personally think it reads more like a wiki of myths, creation stories, and wise moral philosophy gathered by various societies over the centuries. But of course that's just my opinion.
I know this is sudden but i think i may love you. well said on both comments. well said indeed
Culturally, that is, aesthetically, I think a study should be done to determine why Big Think and the Catholic Church share the exact same approach to coloring authority. If you want to seem enlightened, make 'Heaven' all white, and dress the man in black. Similarly, in Asia, their wise men wear white against the night sky, and black against the overcast sorrow of pointless living. What is it about man that we manifest these patterns to ourselves?
Steve Pinker doesn’t know what skepticism is.
Huh what was this referring to?
Absence of ism doesn't end conflict. Isms are inevitable. If you want peace, respect each person, learn and share isms. You see faith and reason as fundamentally opposed, I see them as two wings carrying us to the same destination. A reasonable person cannot reject faith and continue to be reasonable, and a faithful person cannot reject reason and continue to have right faith. Human flourishing requires the integration of faith and reason, to seek truth, love truth, and walk the way of truth.
Any reasoned structure has an unreasoned foundation.
That is, the foundation is chosen.
This comes from basic logic going at least as far back as classical Greek times.
Any doctrinal system must have a pre-rational foundation.
I can't see that Steven Pinker is telling the truth about those things, but I believe it. And I can't see the commitment of people around me to do good, but generally, I believe it anyway.
It is not self-contradictory to expect things from other people asymmetrically, without a premise of "equal rights". More generally, unless your moral claims are logical tautologies (which they are not), they are founded on premises for which you do not give reasons, which is to say, axioms you take on faith (by Dr. Pinker's definition). Thus, by engaging in moral argument (for non-tautologies) we implicitly buy in to both reason _and_ faith -- and moreover we assume our audience _shares_ our faith in certain moral axioms (such as equal rights). In practice, arguments _ad baculum_ are not the alternative to reason; they are the alternative to shared faith -- even among reasonable people.
+Nelson Rushton I see your point, but I'd argue the 'moral axioms' to which we all subscribe are not axioms at all, but can be justified with reason. (Prof. Pinker didn't assert this, but I am now so you're gonna have to deal with me).
I could describe an argument for morality which stems from one tautology and one assumption: I exist with free will because I do, and so does everyone else. Such assertions are formed by the notion of the absurd. It is absurd to believe I do not exist, and so I can only conclude I do. This conclusion is neither reason-based nor faith-based, but naturally follows from the cognitive dissonance caused by any alternative. That humans exist follows from my own existence (this could be treated more carefully, but this post is already gonna be way too long. soz.). Their own free will is an assumption based on the experience I have had with my environment. The model of understanding which best maps onto my observations depends on this assumption - it is entirely empirical and so entirely reasonable.
And if all humans exist, each with their own free will, one naturally reasons that they must all be unique, and none can be equal to any other. Yet since there is no reason to weight any quality higher than any other quality (at least, not without an additional assumption), assessing which humans are superior becomes unreasonable; we must conclude that all humans are equally unequal. And from there the morality we all subscribe to blossoms, with no need of faith.
I would argue nothing I have put forward here is unnecessary - each statement is a natural conclusion from the previous one. If just one unnecessary assumption is permitted, the floodgates open, for there is no reason to disallow any further assumptions, and the path of reason becomes chaos. This is why I agree with Prof. Pinker, that once you're at the 'debate table', the doors to faith have sealed behind you.
No sale.
Aren't Faith & Reason inextricably linked together?
@@mikekane2492 Thank you. Very well put. I'm gonna think about what you've written and respond a little later.
Faith is a form of belief, and knowledge is another form of belief. Faith is a type of attitude towards a belief that does not require the use of reason in order for the belief to be maintained. If there needs to be a reason in order for the belief to be maintained, then it can become knowledge, and if the reason for it turns out to be erroneous or incoherent, then it becomes bogus knowledge, or a "myth".
It's extremely uncommon, although not impossible, for a priori constructions, like the ones used in mathematics and logical structures, to be subject to "faith", since it's not necessary for mathematical objects and structures to exist in order for them to have properties that apply in certain types of cases (to give an example: even if the number 7 didn't exist, it would still hold true that, given the definition of a rational number, that there is no rational number that is equal to the square root of 7)
It's possible to use the word "faith" to designate a person's belief in a universe that expands infinitely, or in (in)finite sets of possible outcomes, since there is no necessary reason to believe that either those statements or their opposite must be the case.
I find it fascinating that authors over hundreds of years claim to have witnessed events that subtely resembled stories in such detail that even today theologians find new connections to past stories. I think it's more likely that these parallels were accidental in the men that wrote them, but not so if they were guided by another. (If you have a bible, try comparing Genesis 22, Isaiah 53, and Luke 23, and see what hidden symbolic parallels there may be).
yeah it's like anything, it's an issue of inductive vs. deductive reasoning. Starting with something entirely inductive is basically a deadly sin ;) Because you first have to deduce--use the info available--to "induce", or create a theory. I think everyone has an innate tendency to screw up (with?) taking something from deduction to induction in a flawed way, and then not wanting to even consider the possibility that your whole line of reasoning could be wrong... pride, speaking of deadly sins!
I wonder how Dr. Pinker reconciles his very apt distinction between force and reason with his position in a protectionist education cartel.
As in the conflict of fundamentalist Christianity facing the naked science of Darwinian evolution? I agree. Bu this is one of those cases where we have faith rejecting reason, rather than incorporating reason with faith, just as I said. But this is not a universal tendency among religions, or even Christianity.
Your absolutism may be divisive, sir. Does the Argument from Contingency invoke psychological conflict for you? Will you so tenaciously defend your faith in "reason" then?
All seek the truth, none has absolute truth, but no truth can contradict itself. We as critics of what is presented as true must understand that at least, and also understand that the burden of proof is necessarily different between each discipline. Theology, specifically, must be willing to view the claims of others with a critical eye, neither accepting everything on the authority of another, nor rejecting everything simply because it goes beyond scientific explanation. I myself have looked...
Cogent philosophy Sir.
I'm not generally impressed with an MA in Philosophy, or a Doctorate in "Sacred Theology" even if it were from Oxford, Harvard etc.
According to reason, that system must be virtual.
Democracy and Statist societies don't work according to that "morality".
A great read is "Universally Preferable Behaviour" by Stefan Molyneux. :)
Why is it that when I read his books, he doesn't write "aaah" like he says it when he speaks?
I would love to see that guy reply. "Oh.... well shit..."
It astounds me how often children find themselves in unfortunate predicaments
or even accidentally die. Good nurturing would eliminate these situations if parents weren’t so distracted by pursuing their owns interests. The responsibility for raising a child particularly in this day & age is far greater than is otherwise carried out or understood. Values don’t come into teenager sex . Again your emphasis seems to be based on conclusions not education and enlightenment about relationships.
Actually, your argument against religion in this case would apply also to the scientific method. The way we make sense of the unknown with the scientific method is through reasons (coming from observation) that sustain the way we interpret reality. But ultimately, it is an interpretation, the reasons we provide come from a former believe and we are inevitably biased to look for the facts that sustain our belief and we sometimes (unwillingly) cross over other facts. And I'm not a religious person
I think you misunderstand writheinpain's statement. He seems exactly correct that religion provides divine justification. It does just that for believers, however, he did not say he was a believer.
I really get where he is coming from
IRE,
Inclusion so everyone can agree because they're included,
Reason so everyone can reach agreement using observable and testable truth and Empathy, so we can see other people's view to understand their reasons and emotions, so that plans can be made to get them on board. And we need more memes like, "Please raise my IRE".
I agree with you, in the sense that religion does prove to be a dogmatic approach to reality and it views its divine theory as the ultimate truth, therefore denying other approaches to reality, so it stays without evolving and that's the difference with science, that it does not have (or should not have) an ultimate truth therefore it is constantly evolving. But nevertheless, we do make biased observations in the moment we state hypotheses as what we do is to try and reaffirm our belief.
Very nice argument.
"naive faith has contributed more to atheism than true atheists ever could"
This is true. There wouldn't be an atheist movement if every believer was like you. People like Dawkins would switch to attacking relativism/postmodernism.
Most people don't redo the experiments, but we build on the shoulders of giants where if you follow the footnotes you eventually get back to a peer-reviewed paper or something that demonstrates the claim to a high degree of confidence. Do you call that "faith" also?
🙏
Great thoughts... I think education is how you share secularism... Give them the internet...
but reason doesn't compel a being to action
i wish they interviewed someone well versed on the is - ought problem
Amen, Brother! ;-)
He’s quoting habermas on communicative rationality in the opening comment
Believe me* I do attack naive Faith, but only where it interferes with Reason. In my view, naive faith has contributed more to atheism than true atheists ever could.
In many ways, the technological breakthroughs we achieve are founded on Faith. Most of us don't re-create the experiments to prove that gravity exists, or that on Earth. it accelerates objects at 9.8 m/s/s. We take it for granted--on Faith--so that we can go on with the more innovative work.
Think of a child who learns by tradition to wash her hands after going to the bathroom. After "critical scrutiny," she realizes that there is no change in the appearance of her hands after she washes them. Does she, out of tradition, continue washing her hands, or does she stop, rejecting the oppressive authority of her mother? Is it necessary to understand how germs spread, cause illnesses, and how washing her hands protects her and those around her, in order to benefit from the tradition?
Human flourishing and integration cannot come about with tolerance or reasonableness appealing as that sentiment is. That is simply maintaining peace
not eradicating the causes for conflict and sublime ignorance. Education that enlightens and promotes critical scrutiny of the whys’ and wherefores’ is long over due for every conscious being. And that from the way things are going globally is inevitable and should be celebrated.
his hair wobbles
It is fine if you want to call that "faith." But in that case I think we need a new term for "belief in things unseen," which is the faith that empowers a great many of the faithful.
Well I don't know what to say to that.
So I'll leave it at thanks.
It's still possible to abandon reason without resorting to throwing chairs or bribes or threats. Ad hominem attacks, manipulative word games, existential threats (like Pascal's Wager) are all verbal and all completely abandon reason.
Isms like religion are inherently divisive and mind forged. But that can all be
negated as we come to better understand the machinations of the brain.
How it copes with conflict, how & why it manages to create the resemblance of order in both the inner and outer world and what happens when for example
faith is challenged defending itself so tenaciously as to invoke psychological and or physical conflict.
What you are refering as beliefs are actually hyphothesis, wich we try to probe or disprobe with studies and tests, after which you end up with conclusions that can be quite the opposite of the ones you started with, once you get enough info you can enunciate a theory then you go to the nex two great acomplishments of the cientific method, which are peer review and metanalys, this way we decrease most of the bias. Religion only answer to everything is: because an old book says so.
In case it has escaped one’s notice, foundation in society is either cracking or slowly crumbling. Foundations which because of their construct ignored the
real world of living conscious beings and their flourishing .
Who, whether we like it or not cannot be fixed or subservient to abstractions or to uphold and respect the conventions of the day, whatever they may be, other than by control or enforcement.
It is in fact entirely irresponsible & arrogant for any individual to tell another
He sounds like me... I have said "we need an Enlightenment 2.0." lol. "Continuous with law"--definitely, I have read legal arguments, they're homologous with academic publications (meaning, also not immune to bullshitting, you're gonna find that everywhere which is kind of the point.) ;) With political organization? No, LOL. That's the enemy of reason right now. (see also: "politicization of science" on Wikipedia.) It's the same issue w/ secular politics as w/ religious politics. :-/
What about that sentiment is so appealing, yet so easy to reject?
What you seem to be proposing is a total dismantling of every foundation of society. What will we be left with? What do we replace it with? Each person will then be rebuilt according to knowledge passed on by those who have "critically scrutinized" every aspect of that foundation. How is that different from treacherous tradition? Unless you mean that each person must discover for themselves, which is utterly irresponsible, IMO.
Damnit I came here, I thought he was talking about Props Reason ..
I'm sorry for my insistence that "you" believe in the divine. I should have said "some think". I apologize for what could have been seen as an attack on you personally instead of a response to the idea that people with divine justification are unreasonable.
I have Faith that Steven Pinker is telling the truth about his philosophy of Reason.
Normally, I have Faith that the people around me are also committed to doing to other people what they would want to have done to themselves. I have little Faith in an atheist's ability to use Reason to justify their belief that there is no god.
I find it curious that so many people that believe in God have no faith in his suppoesed creation. I stopped believing in God the same day I stopped believing in Santa Clause. 40+ years later I still feel compassion, love and empathy. I work toward a better world because it is the world I live in, not because some guy wearing robes and a funny hat is making promises of an eternal Disneyland and threats of a perpetual torture chamber.
Contrary to the holy books, most humans are not psychopaths.
How can you have religion and reason together?
Do you mean uploading like 80 videos in 20 minutes
Steven Pinkerton could have played one hell of a joker in place of Heath Ledger R.I.P., they don't look alike but I think steve could not just play the part but on another level, maybe not Heath, maybe better, I will wonder till the end of time.....
Tom Thomas, I think that playing a villain in a comic book film would be an ideal use of Steven’s vast knowledge and ability to educate the masses
But if you can justify it with evidence then why bother with faith at all? You could make some basic assumptions - a real world exists, etc, and then build a world view on what you observe in nature.
That's what I attempt to do - and of course I fail all the time since I'm a human being loaded with cognitive bias.
Many atheists have read Paul Tillich, etc.
I think the view of faith you are defending is, well, defensible, but it is not the view that motivates most believers. That crude version: "I believe because I believe because I believe" is rampant and that's what many atheists are attacking.
Even if our naive epistemology is somehow self-contradictory (even though it leads to technological breakthroughs) we are still right to attack that naive faith and you should join us.
You live in a fantasy world. I hope you enjoy it.
I don’t believe in a god. But I did hear about a connected universe. The universe being a hub and everything in it belonging to it in some way. If I was to have a discussion about god with a religious person it goes the same way as having a discussion with a scientist that mankind has never been into space. You get a lot of anger and sometimes violence coming straight at you.
Yes, let there be a rising chorus of voices in favor of reason. All are welcome to defend their ideas and be treated with civility, but those that hold up faith like a force-field contribute nothing to the cause of human progress.
If I were to offer you a full scholarship to Yale if you were to profess that I am your mother and you accept... do you believe that I am your mother? Or have you merely responded in a reasonable fashion to achieve a desired end? Faith/belief is entirely different. This is an internal sort of reasoning that either considers a given matter as plausible or the opposite based on the observations and thoughts of a given individual.
has to apply to me unless you are extremely wealthy and live in america.
Personally, I prefer to challenge another's ideas with reason and evidence, THEN I start in with the ad hominem attacks :)
Then there's the martyrs. The witnesses of the death and resurection of Jesus believed what they did so strongly that not even the threat of death could deter them from speaking what they believed to be true. If they lied, what would motivate them to tell the truth more than fear of death? On the other hand, what would they gain from lying? This is why I believe what I do.
Because justification does not mean proof. Science justifies claims according to some authority and by observation in experiments which can be repeated. Historians justify their claims according to a critical method of viewing evidence, none of which is repeatable, since history has already happened, but all of which should be verifiable. Theologians should justify according to evidence also, even though it seems incredible. All seek the truth, none has absolute truth, but...
What happened?
I think the video went a tad over your head...
I think what you are referring to is Christian tradition rather than theological enlightenment. A tradition that is essentially based on faith at its core negates any possibility for critical scrutiny or understanding of human nature in all its manifestations. Instead subscribes to the concept that all human beings are tainted and that this life is nothing more than a means to an end. No new generation should be burdened by such a treacherous notion as a foundation for their flourishing.
I know, that was so irritating, I missed loads of videos from other channels.
Bigthink take note: this is a thinker, Newt Gingrich is not.
Unfortunately, that's just the way language works. No two uses of a word are ever exactly the same (Hayakawa), since "the map is not the territory" (Korzybski). Some people are taught that "belief in things unseen" means that they don't have to justify their faith with reason.One day they'll wake up and realize that if the Bible is absolutely true, but science disagrees, they'll have to reject one to believe the other. Thus atheism spreads.
You are in error. What you describe is not the opposite of current science. Science also starts with theories, and judges the results of measurement in accordance with this vague presupposed foundation. Example: to assume all phenomena represents a flat plane of interrelatedness, as it were, is to judge all measurments to correspond to causes from the perspective that there is only one fundamental nature of all things, and thereby not differentiate according to essence, as some religious do.
he's talking empathy less reason
My faith is that I must love God and the people surrounding my life and so far according reason it is the best decision to make to live a happy life.I have scientific proof that it works.
Why does he compare reason with religion? What's the point of making that argument? Ideology?
To show their antithetical merits as belief systems.
I like Steven Pinker but to say that we are more advanced in terms of reason compared to the rest of the world is a bit much. What about the impact of colonialism? Also, if I'm not mistaken, intellectuals of the Enlightenment era were in fact inspired by other nations that are now part of what we call the global South
Reason can be used for better or worse means, which means colonialism isn’t necessarily incompatible with advanced reasoning skills
M
Did you find the video?
This priest offers a contrasted and reasoned understanding of Faith vs Steve Pinker, whatever his credentials.
Most atheists I encounter have a truly infantile understanding of Faith. I really like Pinker. He's brilliant, but I think his thoughts on Reason being opposed to Faith is predicated on that same foundation. He argues against Faith, but it's a straw man to begin with, perpetuated by faulty epistemology. It's a very shallow understanding of a deeply rich word.
Faith is simply agreeing to accept a proposition without proof, as such a part of the reasoning process. The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident...” Not that democracy is based on reason; it’s based on voting, and yet no society including the USA is a liberal democracy. Most decisions in America are made by bureaucrats and enforced by police who carry guns. We do elect officials who can instruct these bureaucrats. We have norms of limited government expected to honor certain individual rights, amid high levels of education and affluence which help reduce impulses to violence.
Yet these blessings depend on material conditions in the world, not on pure reason, and may predicate on other world peoples being deprived of those blessings as well, because security requires in part that one’s neighbors be weaker than oneself (two points on which Marx was correct.) The Golden Rule prescribes only the player’s first move in the game of Tit for Tat.
the search for gods nature as you put it, only exists in the psychology of Man. How can a thing be greater than the place that contains it. I am all for the atheist relocation program. we should do that experiment with both Atheists and all the other people like you who for some reason still believe in magic. See who fares better, the ones who use reason to find food and water and shelter, or the ones who pray for it.
Your arguing Steven Pinker for a particular type of reasoning is an admission to the fact that human reasoning is entirely a SUBJECTIVE endeavour - this is evident in that all the great rationalists in the history of thought - Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and others, for all their clarity of thought and all their intellective acuity, all came to very different conclusions about important things as the nature of reality, being and of consciousness…
So, you arguing for pure ‘reason’ to bring us into possession of (true) knowledge ineluctably and unavoidably commits one onto the slippery slope of epistemological and moral relativism, from which there is no recovery, only suicide by a thousand qualifications!
Pure (unaided) reason, always self-destructs under the rigour of critical analysis!
In less than a minute he explained why presuppositional argument for the existence of god is prue bullshit.