November 7, 2003

Unreason's Seductive Charms

By DAVID P. BARASH

I teach a course titled "Ideas of Human Nature." When we talk about reason and rationality, my students are respectful but restrained; when it's time to deal with unreason and irrationality, they are downright enthusiastic. Was Hamlet wrong? And Aristotle?

"What a piece of work is a man!" exulted the otherwise melancholy Danish prince. "How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a

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