84. The Mattering Instinct with Rebecca Goldstein

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"We are creatures of matter who long to matter — and one of the strongest manifestations of this is people who deny that we are matter."

Professor Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a philosopher, novelist, and MacArthur Fellow whose books include The Mind-Body Problem, Incompleteness, Betraying Spinoza, and 36 Arguments for the Existence of God (a work of fiction). In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama and has been named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. She joins us to discuss her latest book, The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, and will be the keynote speaker at the World Humanist Congress in Ottawa this August.

Topics we cover

✔︎ What the mattering instinct is, where it comes from, and why it may be the defining feature of our species ✔︎ The four locations on the mattering map — transcenders, communal materers, heroic strivers, and competitors — and what they reveal about human motivation ✔︎ Why public debates about religion so often fail — and what understanding mattering tells us about how to talk across belief divides

Connect with Rebecca and find out more

The Mattering Instinct: https://www.rebeccagoldstein.com/books/the-mattering-instinct

Rebecca's website: https://www.rebeccagoldstein.com

World Humanist Congress, Ottawa, August 2026: https://humanists.international/world-humanist-congress

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