Rebecca Goldstein

Rebecca Goldstein
Born	Rebecca Newberger (1950-02-23) February 23, 1950 White Plains, New York
Nationality	American
Alma mater	City College of New York UCLA Barnard College Princeton University
Spouse(s)	Sheldon Goldstein (divorced) Steven Pinker
Institutions	Columbia University Rutgers University Trinity College Harvard University New York University

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (born February 23, 1950) is an American philosopher who is also a novelist and public intellectual. She is the author of ten books, many of which cross the divide between fiction and non-fiction. Her Princeton Ph.D. was in philosophy of science, and she is sometimes grouped with novelists, such as Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable of, and sympathetic toward, science.

In her three non-fiction works she has shown an affinity for philosophical rationalism, as well as a strong conviction that philosophy, like science, makes progress and that scientific progress is itself supported by philosophical arguments. She has also stressed the role that secular philosophical reason has made in moral advances.

Increasingly, in her talks and interviews, she has been exploring what she has called “mattering theory” as an alternative to traditional utilitarianism. This theory is a continuation of her idea of “the mattering map” that she had first suggested in her novel The Mind-Body Problem. The concept of the mattering map has been widely adopted in contexts as diverse as cultural criticism, psychology, and behavioral economics.

Goldstein is a MacArthur Fellow and has received the National Humanities Medal, the National Jewish Book Award, and numerous other honors.

Early life and education

Goldstein, born Rebecca Newberger, grew up in White Plains, New York, and did her undergraduate work at City College of New York, UCLA, and Barnard College, where she graduated as valedictorian in 1972. She was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. She has one older brother who is an Orthodox Rabbi, and she also has a younger sister, Sarah Stern. An older sister, Mynda Barenholtz, died in 2001.

Career

After earning her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she studied with Thomas Nagel and wrote a dissertation on "Reduction, Realism and the Mind," she returned to Barnard as a professor of philosophy. There she published her first novel, The Mind-Body Problem (1983), a serio-comic tale of the conflict between emotion and intelligence, combined with reflections on the nature of mathematical genius, the challenges faced by intellectual women, and Jewish tradition and identity. Goldstein said she wrote the book to "...insert 'real life' intimately into the intellectual struggle. In short I wanted to write a philosophically motivated novel."

Her second novel, The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (1989), was also set in academia, though with a far darker tone. Her third novel, The Dark Sister (1993), was something of a departure: a postmodern fictionalization of family and professional issues in the life of William James. She followed it with a short-story collection Strange Attractors (1993), which was a National Jewish Honor Book and New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A fictional mother, daughter, and granddaughter introduced in two of the stories in that collection became the main characters of Goldstein's next novel, Mazel (1995), which won the National Jewish Book Award and 1995 Edward Lewis Wallant Award.

A "genius grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program in 1996 led to the writing of Properties of Light (2000), a ghost story about love, betrayal, and quantum physics. Her most recent novel was 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (2010), which explores ongoing controversies over religion and reason through the tale of a professor of psychology who has written an atheist bestseller while his life is permeated with secular versions of religious themes such as messianism, divine genius, and the quest for immortality. The book contains a lengthy nonfiction appendix (attributed to the novel's protagonist) which details thirty-six traditional and modern arguments for the existence of God together with their refutations. The book was chosen as the best work of fiction of 2010 by The Christian Science Monitor.

Goldstein has written two biographical studies: Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005) and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (2006). Betraying Spinoza combined her continuing interest in Jewish ideas, history, and identity with an increasing focus on secularism, humanism, and atheism. Goldstein has described the book, which combines elements of memoir, biography, history, and philosophical analysis, as "the eighth book I’d published, but [the] first in which I took the long-delayed and irrevocable step of integrating my private and public selves.". Together with 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction it established her as a prominent figure in the humanist movement, part of a wave of "new new atheists" marked by less divisive rhetoric and a greater representation of women. In 2011 she was named "Humanist of the Year" by the American Humanist Association and "Freethought Heroine" by the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

In 2014, she published Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, an exploration of the historical roots and contemporary relevance of philosophy. The book alternates between expository chapters on the life and ideas of Plato in the context of ancient Greece with modern dialogues in which Plato is brought to life in the 21st century and demonstrates the relevance of philosophy by arguing with contemporary figures such as a software engineer at Google headquarters, a right-wing talk show host, an affective neuroscientist, and others.

In addition to Barnard, Goldstein has taught at Columbia, Rutgers, and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and she has been since 2014 a visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities in London. As of 2016, she will be a Visiting Professor in the Department of English at New York University. She has held visiting fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute, Brandeis University, the Santa Fe Institute, Yale University, and Dartmouth College. In 2011, she delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Yale University, entitled "The Ancient Quarrel: Philosophy and Literature." She serves on the Council on Values of the World Economic Forum.

Goldstein's writing has been published not only in her books but also in chapters in a number of edited books, and in journals including The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Tikkun (magazine), Commentary (magazine), and in blog format in the Washington Post "On Faith" section. She has served on book prize juries for the National Book Award and the Sami Rohr Prize of the Jewish Book Council.

Personal life

Goldstein lives in Boston and Truro, Massachusetts.

She married her first husband, physicist Sheldon Goldstein, when she was 19 (in 1969) and they were divorced in 1999. She and Sheldon Goldstein are the parents of the novelist Yael Goldstein Love and poet Danielle Blau. In a 2006 interview with Luke Ford, Goldstein said:

I lived Orthodox for a long time. My husband was Orthodox. Because I didn't want to be hypocritical with our kids, I kept everything. I was torn like a character in a Russian novel. It lasted through college. I remember leaving a class on mysticism in tears because I had forsaken God. That was probably my last burst of religious passion. Then it went away and I was a happy little atheist.

She married Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker in December 2007.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (2010)
• Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics (2000)
• Mazel (1995)
• The Dark Sister (1993)
• The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (1989)
• The Mind-Body Problem (1983)

Short stories

• Strange Attractors: Stories (1993)

Nonfiction

• Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away (2014)
• Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (2006)
• Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005)

Awards and fellowships

• 2014 National Humanities Medal (presented September 10, 2015 at the White House by President Barack Obama)
• 2014 Richard Dawkins Award
• 2013 Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College
• 2013 Moment Magazine Creativity Award
• 2012 Franke Visiting Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University
• 2011 Humanist of the Year awarded April 2011 by the American Humanist Association
• 2011 Freethought Heroine awarded October 2011 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation
• 2011 Miller Scholar, Santa Fe Institute
• Best Fiction Book of 2010 ("36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction"), Christian Science Monitor
• Honorary Doctorate, Emerson College, 2008
• Humanist Laureate, awarded by the International Academy of Humanism, 2008
• Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, 2006–2007
• Guggenheim Fellow, 2006–2007
• Koret Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought,[1] 2006, for Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who Gave Us Modernity
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005
• Honorary Doctorate, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership
• MacArthur Fellow, 1996
• National Jewish Book Award, 1995, for Mazel
• Edward Lewis Wallant Award, 1995, for Mazel
• National Jewish Book Award for her book of short stories, Strange Attractors
• Graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, receiving the Montague Prize for Excellence in Philosophy
• While at Princeton University, she was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship
• Whiting Award, 1991

See also

• American philosophy
• Jewish atheism
• List of American philosophers
• List of novelists from the United States
• Philosophical fiction

External links

• Official website
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• Colin McGinn (2014) Book Review: "Plato at the Googleplex" by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
• Rebecca Goldstein (2014) What would Plato Tweet? Opinion piece in "The Stone", New York Times
• Rebecca Goldstein (2014) discusses "Plato at the Googlepex" with Robert Pollie, host of the 7th Avenue Project Radio Show.
• Ophelia Benson (2014) Interview with Rebecca Goldstein on Plato at the Googleplex, philosophy for the public, and everything.
• Hope Reese (2014) Why Study Philosophy? 'To Challenge Your Own Point of View'. An interview with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex
• Ron Charles (2010) Review of "36 Arguments for the Existence of God" in the Washington Post.
• Peter Lopatin (2010) Review of "36 Arguments for the Existence of God", in Commentary
• Interview on CBC Writers & Company with Eleanor Wachtel
• Dialogue with Robert Wright on bloggingheads.tv
• Jake Wallis Simons (2010) There's a third person in this marriage - Spinoza, Profile in The Times
• Jenny Attiyeh (2010) Rebecca Goldstein, the atheist with a soul in an interview on Thoughtcast, which was also broadcast on WGBH (FM)
• Steve Paulson (2007) Proud Atheists, in Salon.
• Luke Ford (2006) Interview on personal life at lukeford.net
• Robert Pollie (2010) Author in dialogue on 36 Arguments for the Existence of God from the 7th Avenue Project Radio Show.
• Paul Comstock (2007) Interview on Baruch Spinoza from California Literature Review.
• Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (2006) "Reasonable Doubt", an essay on Spinoza's influence on John Locke at Edge.org
• Michael Weiss & Rebecca Goldstein (2007) "A Kibitz on Pure Reason": A three-day dialogue on "Betraying Spinoza" from Jewcy.
• Rebecca Goldstein Theory, Literature, Hoax in New York Times Sunday Book Review.
  • Thomas Apolis (2010) Response to "Theory, Literature, Hoax"
• Caitrin Nicol (2010) "Disenchanting Determinism", commentary on 36 Arguments for the Existence of God in The New Atlantis.
• Caroline Seabohm (1983) Review of "The Mind Body Problem" in the New York Times