It’s not uncommon to hear that being “emotional” is the opposite of being “rational.” For many people, the idea of rationality evokes images of a person engaging in intelligent, calculated ...

The short answer is no. The harder you try to be purely rational the less likely it is you’ll get there. What people have is the capacity for rational thought. This capacity exists on top (literally) ...

Find today’s readings here. I have been on what I might call a “lawyer kick” recently: In a class I’m taking, I am reading Cicero’s “De Oratore” (“On the Ideal Orator”), which discusses how one should ...

RATIONALITY: WHAT IT IS, WHY IS SEEMS SCARCE AND WHY IT MATTERS by Steven Pinker, Viking, 412 pages, $32 Late in his life, the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes plunged into a controversy with an ...