Description:
"[An] extraordinary and urgent book." --Jonathan Haidt
"The Mattering Instinct is a masterpiece. I wept, I laughed out loud, I came face-to-face with the wellsprings of my life, but mostly I marveled at Rebecca Goldstein's genius. This book should ignite a revolution." --Martin Seligman, best-selling author of Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being
A paradigm-shifting work that explores humanity's most fundamental desire.
Apple Books - Most Anticipated Books of 2026
Brief description: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual. She is the author of ten books of acclaimed fiction and non-fiction, including 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University and has taught at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and Harvard. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, her work has been supported by the MacArthur "Genius" grant and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Whiting Institute, Radcliffe Institute, and the National Science Foundation. In 2015, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Review Quotes: What drives human beings to do both great good and terrible evil? Rebecca Goldstein brilliantly argues that the answer is strangely simple yet incredibly powerful: it is our need to matter in the world. To understand others--and yourself--read this book.--Arthur C. Brooks, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Build the Life You Want and From Strength to Strength