Like mathematics and music and cosmology and philosophy, poetry, too, can "infinitize" us, granting us what immortality there is to be had in this mortal life. And all those who vibrate in harmony to language that itself vibrates to the harmonies of the infinite are entitled to inclusion among the "small group of people.
Rebecca GoldsteinI'm a Spinozist. I believe in reason. I think all the progress that we've made making this a better world have been because of reason and not religion. I think religion has been pulled along by reason and that's why we read The Bible now so differently, even believers.
Rebecca GoldsteinAnd what is it, according to Plato, that philosophy is supposed to do? Nothing less than to render violence to our sense of ourselves and our world, our sense of ourselves in the world.
Rebecca GoldsteinWhat was tortuously secured by complex argument becomes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance. We donโt see it, because we see with it.
Rebecca GoldsteinI have a Greek-American friend who named her daughter "Nike" and is often asked why she chose to name her offspring after a sneaker.
Rebecca GoldsteinWhat is remarkable about the Greeks - even pre-philosophically - is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual human life worth living they didn't look to the immortals but rather approached the question in mortal terms. Their approaching the question of human mattering in human terms is the singularity that creates the conditions for philosophy in ancient Greece, most especially as these conditions were realized in the city-state of Athens.
Rebecca Goldstein