WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony Hypocrisy and Outrage
PINKER Steven
ISBN 10: 0241618827 ISBN 13: 9780241618820
Published by Allen Lane, 2025. 9780241618820
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1st edn 1st printing. 8vo. Original black lettered blue cloth (Fine), dustwrapper (Fine, not price clipped). Pp. xi + 364, with b&w illus (no inscriptions). Seller Inventory # 197602
Synopsis:
As a cognitive scientist, the ultimate subject of Steven Pinker’s fascination is how we think about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness, which we experience as something that is public or “out there,” is called common knowledge, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives.
Common knowledge, Pinker shows, can make sense of many of life’s enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretence of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room.
In exploring the paradoxes of human behaviour, When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows… invites us to understand the ways we try to get into each other’s heads, and the harmonies, hypocrisies, and outrages that result.
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Title: WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS ...
Publisher: Allen Lane, 2025. 9780241618820
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Edition: 1st Edition
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When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows.: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage (Signed First Edition
Published by
Allen Lane, 2025
ISBN 10: 0241618827
ISBN 13: 9780241618820
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Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. A fine new book and dust-jacket, signed by the Author on the title page. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 040236
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When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows.: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage ~ UK SIGNED FIRST/FIRST
Published by
Allen Lane, 2025
ISBN 10: 0241618827
ISBN 13: 9780241618820
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First Edition
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Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. SCARCE SIGNED! FIRST EDITION, first printing. Book is brand new and unread. Personally hand signed by one of our greatest living intellectuals, Steven Pinker, directly to the full title page. NOT inscribed to anyone. NOT a tip in. NOT a bookplate. Dust jacket hand covered in protective archival grade Mylar for many worry free years of reading/collecting! From one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals, a brilliantly insightful work that explains how we think about each other's thoughts about each other's thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness, which we experience as something that is public or "out there," is called common knowledge, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It's also necessary for social coordination: everything from rendezvousing at a time and place to speaking the same language to forming enduring relationships of friendship, romance, or authority. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledgeto ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can't know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life's enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretense of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. Artists and humorists have long mined the intrigues of common knowledge, and Pinker liberally uses their novels, jokes, cartoons, films, and sitcom dialogues to illuminate social life's tragedies and comedies. Along the way he answers questions like: Why do people hoard toilet paper at the first sign of an emergency? Why are Super Bowl ads filled with ads for crypto? Why, in American presidential primary voting, do citizens typically select the candidate they believe is preferred by others rather than their favorite? Why did Russian authorities arrest a protester who carried a blank sign? Why is it so hard for nervous lovers to say goodbye at the end of a phone call? Why does everyone agree that if we were completely honest all the time, life would be unbearable? Consistently riveting in explaining the paradoxes of human behavior, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows invites us to understand the ways we try to get into each other's heads and the harmonies, hypocrisies, and outrages that result. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # ABE-1759427896583