Irrationality: A History Of The Dark Side Of Reason

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A fascinating history that reveals the ways in which the pursuit of rationality often leads to an explosion of irrationality It's a story we can't stop telling ourselves. Once, humans were benighted by superstition and irrationality, but then the Greeks invented reason. Later, the Enlightenment enshrined rationality as the supreme value. Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the "rational animal." But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today--from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump—Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite. From sex and music to religion and war, irrationality makes up the greater part of human life and history. Rich and ambitious,Irrationalityranges across philosophy, politics, and current events. Challenging conventional thinking about logic, natural reason, dreams, art and science, pseudoscience, the Enlightenment, the internet, jokes and lies, and death, the book shows how history reveals that any triumph of reason is temporary and reversible, and that rational schemes, notably including many from Silicon Valley, often result in their polar opposite. The problem is that the rational gives birth to the irrational and vice versa in an endless cycle, and any effort to permanently set things in order sooner or later ends in an explosion of unreason. Because of this, it is irrational to try to eliminate irrationality. For better or worse, it is an ineradicable feature of life. Illuminating unreason at a moment when the world appears to have gone mad again,Irrationalityis fascinating, provocative, and timely.

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➤ ➤ IRR T ION LI T Y Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Engenders Monsters (1799). ➤ ➤ IRR TION LITY A HISTORY OF THE DA RK SIDE OF RE A SON JUSTIN E. H. SMITH PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2019 by Justin E. H. Smith Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to [email protected] Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953426 ISBN 978-0-691-17867-7 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Editorial: Rob Tempio, Matt Rohal Production Editorial: Lauren Lepow Text Design: Leslie Flis Jacket Design: Amanda Weiss Production: Jacqueline Poirier Publicity: Julia Haav, Katie Lewis This book has been composed in Arno with DIN Pro and DIN 1451 Engschrift display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to the memory of Kenneth Von Smith (1940–2016) For to every philosophy there are certain rear parts, very important parts, and these, like the rear of one’s head, are best seen by reflection. — Herman Melville, The Confidence- Man (1857) C ON T E N T S ➤➤➤➤➤ Preamble. A Mathematician’s Murder 1 Introduction Reason’s Twin Enlightenment into Myth The Present Moment Irrationality: A Road Map 5 19 C H A P T E R O N E . The Self-Devouring Octopus; or, Logic 27 The Operation of Falsity Explosions Kaspar Hauser and the Limits of Rational Choice  Carrying On about the Ineffable C H A P T E R T WO . “No-Brainers”; or, Reason in Nature An Ordered Whole Brute Beasts An Imperfect Superpow
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