Talk:Rebecca Goldstein

This article needs rewriting.
"Recently Goldstein has turned to biography with her books Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005) and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (2006). The books reflect her continuing interests in the relationship between the life of the mind and the demands of everyday existence, and in Jewish perspectives and history." This is at best misleading. 'Incompleteness' does not especially reflect Goldstein's interest in 'Jewish perspectives and history', since Gödel was not Jewish. The whole article needs a rewrite, cribbed as it is from the bio on Goldstein's website. It reads more like a blurb than an encyclopedia article ('another heady and erotic tale...'). Lexo 09:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Disagree with the need for a major rewrite, though I did tone down the blurbiness in the description of the second novel. It's hardly misleading to say that the Spinoza book reflects Goldstein's interest in Jewish history. And the Gödel book treats the subject to some extent in the discussion of his Austrian background and his relationship with Einstein - though Gödel himself was not Jewish. Casey Abell 12:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

36 Arguments for the Existence of God is missing
Can someone add information about her newest novel?

timhoustontx (talk) 14:46, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Apart from appearing in this video with William Lane Craig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4oIqnaxlg) I don't see how she is authoritative in arguments for or against God. And in that video, she is completely caught off guard with a quote by her husband Steven Pinker, and appears to be a complete air head when it comes to basic philosophy. e.g. she appears to be a dinosaur raising century old arguments like the Euthyphro dilemma that modern philosophy has definitively answered 2001:8003:6A23:2C00:C8DB:6414:FBC8:DF68 (talk) 14:30, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Request
If you find this link useful may you please add it to the article’s external links: *Interview with Rebecca Goldstein on Reason and its Limitations in FiveBooks Thank you, Anon111 (talk) 16:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Anon111


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as per Talk:Chibli_Mallat. --JokerXtreme (talk) 09:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Other Works
Could her books maybe be moved to a list, and perhaps add other works she has done such as online articles and interviews? Heather Chait (talk) 19:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia standards are declining: there is no list of published works while a list of awards is given in full. The proliferation of awards makes them irrelevant, except for the author's vanity and the publisher's business.91.92.179.172 (talk) 20:45, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Personal Life
I changed the wording about her divorce from Goldstein and marriage to Pinker as it strongly implied that she left the former for the latter ("she divorced her first husband and married Steven Pinker" - or something like that), which seems possibly defamatory and thus not in line with Wikipedia policy. I sought dates for when she married Goldstein, separated from him, and married Pinker but did not seek so carefully as to look at Lexus-Nexus database, and instead used the sources referenced (what she told an interviewer about when she and Goldstein separated, and a dated flickr photo for the wedding with Pinker); both seem accurate. In any case, they don't imply a causal chain. Brozhnik (talk) 02:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 04:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I would agree with this. I do not know how you could call this person in any way, shape or form a legitimate "philosopher". She may be married to a brilliant mind who is a psychology professor at Harvard, but she is completely incompetent in the field of philosophy - unless if you want to put it under the category of "recreational" philosophy 2001:8003:6A23:2C00:C8DB:6414:FBC8:DF68 (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * She is a professor of philosophy. That seems to pass the bar. Or do I misunderstand something? Ashmoo (talk) 14:52, 16 July 2018 (UTC)