Word: goldsteinã
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...author has circled several answers to the same question. Whereas a traditional philosopher must present a rigorous argument that is carefully constructed and proven, the philosophical novelist revels in the ambiguity of his or her characters, and the conflicting ideas that make up their lives and conversations. Rebecca Goldstein??who has made a career out of presenting philosophical concepts in fictional form—offers with her latest book a showcase of the advantages and frustrations attendant to this curious medium. “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction” doesn?...
...Goldstein??s novel flits between two storylines in the life of affable academic Cass Seltzer, one in his present, the other in his past. Presently, Seltzer is contemplating an offer to assume a post at Harvard University, having achieved unexpected fame with his book, “The Varieties of Religious Illusion.” The combination of this secularist tract—and its appendix refuting 36 arguments for God’s existence—with Cass’s clear-eyed empathy for religious belief has turned him into an overnight celebrity, dubbed by Time...
Goldstein can introduce so many abstract concerns because she chooses here, as in many of her other books, to make her characters professional scholars, a territory she knows well. Seltzer’s academic career is narrated by Goldstein??a former fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other posts—with the skill of an insider. Given Goldstein??s background, Harvard students may find much that is familiar in Seltzer’s story. He works at a predominantly Jewish university named for a famous Jewish jurist—not Brandeis...
When it comes to sketching Jewish tradition, and the life of New Walden’s Hasidim, however, Goldstein??s understanding is slightly weaker. She gets the names of Hasidic customs wrong—dubbing the mystical Hasidic custom of waiting to cut a boy’s hair until his third birthday an “upshneering” instead of the Yiddish “upsherin”—and her Klapper character deduces the numerical value of his Hebrew name using a form of gematria so obscure that Goldstein is either being very...
According to Pinker, both he and his wife are atheists and also believe in morality. The core of last night’s discussion, as well as the argument of Goldstein??s novel, is an effort to dismantle the idea that morality stems from religion and that without religion, there is no morality...