Wallace Kaufman

“The very fact of interrogating the concept of reason using reason presupposes the validity of reason. (40)
As the saying goes, the more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. . . . Another reassurance that reason is valid is that it works. (41)

And that is the power of reason: it can reason about itself. When something appears mad, we can look for a method to the madness. (71)

Quoting Hume “Of Miracles”
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a ind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.

And quoting Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Quoting Dr. Seuss: “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.”

Reality is that which, when you apply motivated or myside or mythological reasoning to it, does not go away. . . . A corrosion of standards of truth undermines democracy and clears the ground for tyranny.

Each of us has a motive to prefer our truth, but together we’re better off with the truth. 315
all from Rationality, by Steven Pinker”
― Steven Pinker