Rationally Speaking: Skeptical Essays on Reality as We Think We Know It by Massimo Pigliucci
Requirements: .ePUB Reader | 304 kb
Overview: Why would a professional scientist who spends most of his time working on fairly specific scientific puzzles concerning gene-environment interactions (what is often referred to as “nature-nurture” questions) spend a considerable amount of time and emotional energy writing electronic “messages in a bottle” to be entrusted to the capricious currents of the Internet?
Because Pigliucci firmly believes that academics have a duty to society to be public intellectuals. Of course, the word “intellectual” has, at best, a dubious reputation in the United States (as opposed to Europe, where it is not uncommon to see philosophers, sociologists and scientists appearing on tv talk shows). Indeed, anti-intellectualism as a phenomenon characteristic of American society almost from its inception, has been the object of much study by sociologists who have identified its various components (from disdain for “theoretical” pursuits because they are not in line with the capitalist ethos to religious fundamentalist attacks on evolution). Nonetheless, and indeed precisely because of the widespread anti-intellectualism, the U.S. desperately needs intellectuals, from the academic world as much from outside of it (artists, journalists, authors, etc.).
Democracy, Winston Churchill once said, is the worst form of government except for every other one. Plato wasn’t a friend of democratic government, especially after he saw the Athenian democracy kill his mentor, Socrates. If we want to have a truly liberal democracy, and not the kind of mob rule that Plato disdained, we need educated people. Education, in turn, is not just an accumulation of factual knowledge, nor is it the acquisition of skills useful to the large corporations who now run the world. It is, at its essence, the ability to think critically about anything that is relevant to our lives. We hope, therefore, that you will enjoy these essays in the spirit they were written, to provide good food for thinking and further discussion.
Genre: Non Fiction Philosophy
Download Instructions:
http://corneey.com/wXl4HC
Mirror:
http://corneey.com/wXl4H6
