Word: make
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...like a multiple choice test for which the author has circled several answers to the same question. Whereas a traditional philosopher must present a rigorous argument that is carefully constructed and proven, the philosophical novelist revels in the ambiguity of his or her characters, and the conflicting ideas that make up their lives and conversations. Rebecca Goldstein—who has made a career out of presenting philosophical concepts in fictional form—offers with her latest book a showcase of the advantages and frustrations attendant to this curious medium. “36 Arguments for the Existence...
Goldstein can introduce so many abstract concerns because she chooses here, as in many of her other books, to make her characters professional scholars, a territory she knows well. Seltzer’s academic career is narrated by Goldstein—a former fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other posts—with the skill of an insider. Given Goldstein’s background, Harvard students may find much that is familiar in Seltzer’s story. He works at a predominantly Jewish university named for a famous Jewish jurist—not Brandeis...
...intellectual banter, witty academic satire and thoughtful portrayal of religious life and community—all of which make this a far more elegant and effective work than any new atheist polemic—“36 Arguments for the Existence of God” still simplifies its subject, and so falls short of meeting its own ambitious standards. A novel that considers rational religionists and non-materialists on their own terms, while maintaining its strong intellectual reservations, would make a worthy sequel to this excellent but incomplete entry into the genre...
...added that the changes to the grading scheme will make many “skeptical as to whether [CS50 is] a serious course anymore...
...during the climactic sequence, in a swimming pool. This technique effectively communicates the characters’ absorption in their own images, and how they define themselves through their purchases. It also accuses the viewer of engaging in the same kind of tireless self-promotion. Not only does our consumerism make us fall prey to advertisements, but our fixation with self-image puts us in danger of becoming advertisements ourselves...