The Philosopher: Rebecca Goldstein + Antonio Damasio

With the advances made in neuroscience, do we need philosophers? Rebecca Goldstein addresses thisand other questions in her new book Plato at the Googleplex and here, in person, with one of neuroscience’s leading lights, Antonio Damasio.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is launching her most recent work, Plato at the Googleplex, published by Pantheon, at The Rubin with this Brainwave session. She received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include the novels The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and nonfiction studies of Kurt Gödel and Baruch Spinoza. She has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, has been designated a Humanist of the Year and a Freethought Heroine, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in Massachusetts.
Dr. Antonio Damasio is University Professor and David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California; he is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes memory, language, emotions, and decisions and has described his discoveries in books (Self Comes to Mind, Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, and Looking for Spinoza) translated into over 30 languages and taught in universities worldwide. He is the recipient of numerous awards (including, most recently, the Honda Prize in 2010; Asturias Prize in Science and Technology, 2005; and the Signoret Prize, 2004, which he shared with his wife Hanna Damasio). Damasio is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He has been named “Highly Cited Researcher” by the Institute for Scientific Information. His current work is aimed at illuminating the brain basis of social behaviors (ranging from moral judgments and communication to economic decisions), and understanding mechanisms of creativity in art, science, and technology. This is his second Brainwave appearance.