Experts
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
Philosopher and Author
Recent Activity
Novelist and philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is married to cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. What have they learned about love, from study and experience? … Watch
February 11, 2010 | In Inspiration & Wisdom, Love, Sex, & Happiness
What the man Bertrand Russell called “the most lovable of philosophers” still has to teach us. … Watch
February 3, 2010 | In Inspiration & Wisdom
The philosopher explains the “moral argument” for the existence of God and why it still holds some appeal for contemporary philosophers. … Watch
February 3, 2010 | In Belief, Identity, Inspiration & Wisdom
The novelist describes the “transcendent instinct” common to both fields, but believes religion has been “pulled along by reason” and not vice versa. … Watch
February 3, 2010 | In Belief, Inspiration & Wisdom
Science Versus Faith…Versus Fiction?
Why the author of “36 Arguments for the Existence of God” chose fiction as a path into the debate raging between atheists and believers. … Watch
February 3, 2010 | In Belief
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a novelist and philosopher. Her novels include "The Mind-Body Problem," "The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind," "Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics," and her latest, "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction" (Pantheon Books).
In 1996 Goldstein became a MacArthur Fellow. In 2005 she was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Fellowship. In 2008, she was designated a Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Emerson College, where she gave the commencement address.
Goldstein has taught at Barnard College, in the Columbia MFA writing program, and in the department of philosophy at Rutgers; has been a visiting scholar at Brandeis University; and has taught for five years as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2006-2007 she was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Currently she is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
