Gray in his review doesn't establish that enlightenment thinkers had no common values. He only points out that some of them had wrong conclusions. The leap fr

Gray in his review doesn't establish that enlightenment thinkers had no common values. He only points out that some of them had wrong conclusions. The leap from that to implying that they lacked any common values is entirely illegitimate. I have looked at both Gray and Pinker but have not read this book or any of Gray's. If Pinker doesn't articulate historically defensible core enlightenment values, that is a valid criticism, but doesn't deeply undermine his thesis. I'd very much like to see a sympathetic exploration of the question "What exactly are enlightenment values?" That is a potentially deep question in the history of ideas but not the one Pinker was trying to answer. I don't think Gray is a trustworthy guide in exploring that question -- way too tendentious.