Books

PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
Goldstein R. PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. Pantheon Books; 2014. Check out my Book TourAbstract
At the heart of the latest work from acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein lies one question: is philosophy obsolete? In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX (Pantheon Books/March 4), Goldstein proves why philosophy is here to stay – and in fact more relevant today than ever before – by revealing its hidden (though essential) role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. Goldstein does so in a wholly unique way – by imagining Plato (the original philosopher) come to life in the twenty-first century. As he embarks on a multicity speaking tour, Goldstein asks: how would Plato handle a host on FOX News who denies that there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a Tiger Mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? And what would Plato make of Google, and the idea that knowledge can be crowdsourced rather than reasoned out by experts? Goldstein also provides an in-depth study of Plato’s views, while examining the culture responsible for producing them. With scholarly depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, she probes the deepest issues confronting our time, by allowing us to understand the source of Plato’s theories, and to eavesdrop as he takes on the modern world.
Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
Goldstein R. Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. Pantheon; 2010.Abstract

Equally adept at fiction (a winner of the National Jewish Book Award) and philosophy (a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” prize), Rebecca Newberger Goldstein now gives us a novel that transforms the great debate between faith and reason into an exhilarating romance of both heart and mind.

At the center: Cass Seltzer, a professor of psychology whose book, The Varieties of Religious Illusion, has become a surprise best seller. He’s been dubbed “the atheist with a soul,” and his sudden celebrity has upended his life. He wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum–“the goddess of game theory”–and loses himself in a spiritually expansive infatuation. A former girlfriend appears: an anthropologist who invites him to join in her quest for immortality through biochemistry. But he is haunted by reminders of the two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his teacher Jonas Elijah Klapper, a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius, heir to the leadership of an exotic Hasidic sect. The rush of events in a single dramatic week plays out Cass’s conviction that the religious impulse spills out into life at large.

In 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explores the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating, it is a luminous and intoxicating novel.

Mazel
Goldstein R. Mazel. Viking; 1995.