Of all the ironies in academia, this one felt particularly unlikely: I was asked to introduce Steven Pinker and moderate the Q&A for his latest book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... : Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

The problem? Pinker and I inhabit different intellectual universes.

Two Physics, Two Worlds

If you could map cognitive science onto physics, Pinker's world operates like Newtonian mechanics: clean lines, predictable trajectories, universal laws. Language, in his framework, is an instinct, a distinct module that evolved in our species. It works in clear causal chains and direct relationships. Common knowledge (that recursive structure where I know that you know that I know) is something we can identify, analyze, and deliberat

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