First of all, since this is my first of her books, I must say that I love Rebecca Goldstein's writing style, and am very excited to read more things that she has written.I checked out this book from the library because I was curious to read its appendix, which is indeed a good compendium of argum...
There is no doubt that Rebecca Goldstein is a talented and brilliant writer who knows how to provide historical context and insights into Plato and Socrates. Moreover, her Socratic dialogues are stimulating, interesting, and entertaining. The concept of Plato appearing in the 21st century is an i...
Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He we...
Prologue: Baruch, Bento, Benedictus1. Huygens, Oeuvres complètes, 6:181.2. Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe I. i. 148. This is from a letter to Leibniz of Johan Georg Graevius, professor of rhetoric, and from Leibniz’s reply to him.3. “In a series of open letters to Mendelssohn, Jacobi cla...
He had conked out early, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep, but now he’s fully awake, groping around for provocations for feeling guilty, because that’s the normal behavior when you wake up in the middle of the night. You wake, you feel guilty, you search for reasons to justify your guilt. ...