New Books Network Steven Pinker, "When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life" (Scribner, 2025)
Mar 23, 2026
Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist and bestselling author, explores common knowledge and how it shapes coordination, politics, money, and social life. He explains signals that create shared awareness like laughter and eye contact. He also examines how deniability, diplomacy, internet censorship, and rituals hide or reveal what everyone knows.
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What Common Knowledge Really Means
- Common knowledge is when A knows X, B knows X, A knows that B knows X, B knows that A knows X, and so on infinitely.
- Pinker explains it as a coordination condition that public, conspicuous events (like language or assemblies) create by letting everyone see others see the event.
Institutions Exist Because We All Act As If
- Institutions like paper currency, governments, and universities rely on everyone acting as if they exist because that shared belief sustains their functions.
- Their value is not intrinsic but produced by mutually held expectations and coordination.
Euphemism Preserves Relationships By Denying Common Knowledge
- Indirect speech (politeness, innuendo, veiled bribes) preserves relationships by making intentions deniable at higher orders of knowledge.
- Euphemism hides common knowledge of the intention while still transmitting the message to recipients.
