Now that we got you a bit warmed up, time to move on to our summary proper, dividing it (just like Pinker’s book) into three unequal and unsymmetrical parts. The second one is by David Deutsch, a physicist, one of Spinoza’s modern descendants, a guy whose seminal TED Talk on the nature of explanations we encourage you to see right now: “Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.” The first one is by Baruch Spinoza, one of the original Enlighteners, who probably needs no further introduction: “Those who are governed by reason desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of humankind.” “Enlightenment Now PDF Summary”Ī worthy follow-up to The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now is a research-based, graph-filled, quotes-adorned apology of Enlightenment values (i.e., reason, science, and humanism), embellished with a firm belief that, unless we stray off this agenda-less path, we are bound to create a better world for all humans.Īnd you can get this feeling already from the two epigraphs of the book.

Pinker earned his reputation as the author of eight language-related Chomsky-inspired books, the most well-known among these being The Language Instinct, first published in 1994.ĭuring the last decade, however, he has reached a much wider audience through three popular science books ( The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and this one, Enlightenment Now) in which he argues that our future is not that bleak and that, far from being a failed species, humans are actually awesome.įind out more at. He is widely considered one of the most influential intellectuals in the world today. Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American award-winning linguist, cognitive psychologist and a renowned popularizer of science.

Pinker enlightenment now