Rebecca Goldstein+

Viva la Résistance: Part One

I've always considered myself a counter-example to the claim that humans need a community to flourish. Is it possible I just never found the right community?

A Mattering Guide to Love and Sex

Not Plato's madness, but a quiet conspiracy

Chew on That, Professor!

How trite it is to assert that every person matters. But how do you go about proving it?

A Bit of Kvetching and a Bit of Celebration

Kvetching is Yiddish for bellyaching, and I indulge in some kvetching here. But not for long,

Ecstasy, Immodesty, and Obedience.

When my father read the plaque on my office door, which declared me a professor, he was taken aback.

Not All Mattering Is Mattering to Others

My recent experiences in clarifying what I mean by "mattering" has me reaching for an analogy to a perplexing neuropsychological syndrome.

"Totalitarian?" Really?

Every author is told not to respond to book reviews. But one, in the "Wall Street Journal," of "The Mattering Instinct" was special, and I felt that something could be learned by discussing it.

On the Transitory Nature of Happiness and Why It Doesn't Matter

The day before pub date finds me trying to figure out why I'm not going to pieces. Jimmy Choo shoes are not entirely irrelevant.

The Harder Problem of Consciousness?

This morning’s reading has sent me delving into reverie and reverence

Blasted by Spinoza

Spinoza’s Ethics is one of the foundational works of modernity, but it is notoriously difficult. I read it for the first time when I was teaching it, obviously something I had no business doing.

Dreams of Borszczow On Thanksgiving Day

Every Thanksgiving, that paradigmatically American holiday. I revisit the untraversable distance between my beloved father and me.

Philosophical Fiction (And the Fiction of Philosophers)

Iris Murdoch, who was like me both a philosopher and a novelist, has always meant a lot to me, which is why I can't stop arguing with her.

My Week with Gödel

Kurt Gödel, master of the self-referential paradox, spotted one in the US Constitution. Einstein shut him up before he blurted it to a judge, which could have threatened his US citizenship.

The Mattering Map

How alike we are in all our differences.