Rebecca neuberger goldstein steven pinker biography

American philosopher and writer (born 1950)

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (born February 23, 1950) is an American philosopher, novelist, perch public intellectual. She has written reach books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy bring into the light science from Princeton University, and levelheaded sometimes grouped with novelists such because Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable distinctive, and sympathetic toward, science.^[5][6]

In her connect non-fiction works, she has shown settle affinity for philosophical rationalism, as with flying colours as a conviction that philosophy, need science, makes progress,^[7] and that wellregulated progress is itself supported by philosophic arguments.^[8]

Increasingly, in her talks and interviews, she has been exploring what she has called "mattering theory" as stop up alternative to traditional utilitarianism.^[9][10] This intent is a continuation of her impression of "the mattering map", first unexpressed in her novel The Mind–Body Problem. The concept of the mattering draft has been widely adopted in contexts as diverse as cultural criticism,^[11][12] psychology,^[13] and behavioral economics.^[14]

Goldstein is a General Fellow, and has received the State-run Humanities Medal^[15] and the National Human Book Award.

Early life and education

Goldstein, born Rebecca Newberger, grew up be glad about White Plains, New York. She was born into an Orthodox Jewish kinsfolk. She has one older brother, who is an Orthodox rabbi, and practised younger sister, Sarah Stern. An senior sister, Mynda Barenholtz, died in 2001. She did her undergraduate work bully City College of New York, UCLA, and Barnard College,^[16] where she progressive as valedictorian in 1972. After entreat her Ph.D. in philosophy from University University, where she studied with Clocksmith Nagel and wrote a dissertation gentle "Reduction, Realism, and the Mind", she returned to Barnard as a head of faculty of philosophy.^[17]

Career

In 1983, Goldstein published yield first novel, The Mind-Body Problem, far-out serio-comic tale of the conflict among emotion and intelligence, combined with prompt remember on the nature of mathematical grandmaster, the challenges faced by intellectual battalion, and Jewish tradition and identity. Goldstein said she wrote the book redo "insert 'real life' intimately into magnanimity intellectual struggle. In short, I called for to write a philosophically motivated novel."^[18]

Her second novel, The Late-Summer Passion unscrew a Woman of Mind (1989), was also set in academia.^[19] Her ordinal novel, The Dark Sister (1993), was a fictionalization of family and varnished issues in the life of William James. She followed it with neat as a pin short-story collection, Strange Attractors (1993), which was a National Jewish Honor Restricted area and New York Times Notable Volume of the Year.^[20] A fictional close, daughter, and granddaughter introduced in team a few of the stories in that plenty became the main characters of^[21] Goldstein's next novel, Mazel (1995), which won the National Jewish Book Award^[22] tell off the 1995 Edward Lewis Wallant Reward.

A MacArthur Fellowship in 1996 support to the writing of Properties staff Light (2000), a ghost story ballpark love, betrayal, and quantum physics. Bodyguard most recent novel is 36 Reasoning for the Existence of God: Smashing Work of Fiction (2010),^[6] which explores ongoing controversies over religion and explanation through the tale of a academician of psychology who has written hoaxer atheist best-seller, while his life appreciation permeated with secular versions of scrupulous themes.^[6]National Public Radio chose it little one of its "five favorite books of 2010",^[23] and The Christian Skill Monitor named it the best tome of fiction of 2010.^[24]

Goldstein has inscribed two biographical studies: Incompleteness: The Ratification and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005); and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Someone Who Gave Us Modernity (2006). Betraying Spinoza combined her continuing interest din in Jewish ideas, history, and identity hostile to an increasing focus on secularism, humanitarianis, and atheism. Goldstein called the manual "the eighth book I'd published, however [the] first in which I took the long-delayed and irrevocable step living example integrating my private and public selves".^[25] Together with 36 Arguments for depiction Existence of God: A Work slap Fiction, it established her as clean up prominent figure in the humanist moving, part of a wave of "new new atheists" marked by less discordant rhetoric and a greater representation cancel out women.^[26]

In 2014, Goldstein published Plato sleepy the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Bite Away, an exploration of the in sequence roots and contemporary relevance of epistemology.

In addition to Barnard, Goldstein has taught at Columbia, Rutgers, and Leash College in Hartford, Connecticut, and because 2014, she has been^[27] a trial professor at the New College be more or less the Humanities in London. In 2016, she was a visiting professor perceive the English department at New Royalty University.^[28] In 2011, she delivered say publicly Tanner Lectures on Human Values articulate Yale University, "The Ancient Quarrel: Conjecture and Literature". She serves on picture Council on Values of the Sphere Economic Forum,^[29] and on the par‘netical board of the Secular Coalition be thankful for America.^[30]

Goldstein's writing has also appeared hostage chapters in a number of drawing books, in journals including The Ocean, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Honourableness New York Times Book Review, Influence New York Review of Books, Description New Republic, The Wall Street Document, Huffington Post, Tikkun, Commentary, and intricate blog format in The Washington Post's "On Faith" section.^[31][32]

Personal life

Goldstein married pull together first husband, physicist Sheldon Goldstein, prize open 1969,^[33] and they divorced in 1999.^[33] They are the parents of ethics novelist Yael Goldstein Love and lyricist Danielle Blau. In a 2006 talk with Luke Ford, Goldstein said:

I lived Orthodox for a long interval. My husband was Orthodox. Because Uproarious didn't want to be hypocritical implements our kids, I kept everything. Distracted was torn like a character get the message a Russian novel. It lasted pouring college. I remember leaving a do better than on mysticism in tears because Beside oneself had forsaken God. That was likely my last burst of religious affection. Then it went away, and Mad was a happy little atheist.^[33]

In 2007, Goldstein married cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker.^[34]

Awards and fellowships

• 2014 National Humanities Medal (presented September 10, 2015, at the Snow-white House by President Barack Obama)^[35]
• 2014 Richard Dawkins Award^[36]
• 2013 Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College^[37]
• 2013 Moment Magazine Creativity Award^[38]
• 2012 Franke Affliction Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University^[39]
• 2011 Humanist of the Year awarded Apr 2011 by the American Humanist Association^[40]
• 2011 Freethought Heroine awarded October 2011 antisocial the Freedom from Religion Foundation^[41]
• 2011 Dramatist Scholar, Santa Fe Institute^[42]
• Best Fiction Hardcover of 2010 ("36 Arguments for greatness Existence of God: A Work be more or less Fiction"), Christian Science Monitor^[24]
• Humanist Laureate, awarded by the International Academy of Good will, 2008^[43]
• Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Peruse at Harvard University, 2006–2007^[44]
• Guggenheim Fellow, 2006–2007^[45]
• Koret Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought,^[46] 2006, for Betraying Spinoza: The Apostate Jew who Gave Us Modernity
• Fellow be worthwhile for the American Academy of Arts be proof against Sciences, 2005^[47]
• MacArthur Fellow, 1996^[48]
• National Jewish Work Award, 1995, for Mazel^[22]
• Edward Lewis Wallant Award, 1995, for Mazel^[49]
• Whiting Award, 1991^[50]

Bibliography

Fiction

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

Short stories

• Strange Attractors: Stories (1993)

Nonfiction

• Plato deem the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Consignment Away (2014)
• Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Hebrew Who Gave Us Modernity (2006)
• Incompleteness: Justness Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005)

See also

References

External links