The Delusions of Certainty
Oct 2017 · Simon and Schuster
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About this ebook
“The Delusions of Certainty is a unique book by an extraordinary author. Siri Hustvedt is a notable novelist, art scholar, and a philosopher of science. In this memorable and immensely enjoyable volume, Hustvedt rises above the exhausted debate over the two cultures, to demonstrate not just the possibility but also the advantages of combining the approaches of the arts, humanities, and sciences to illuminate a key aspect of the human condition: the mind-body problem.”
—Antonio Damasio, bestselling author of Descartes’ Error and Self Comes to Mind
“Siri Hustvedt proves her membership in the highest rank of neuroscientists and philosophers who probe the nature of thought and the workings of consciousness. A novelist and a student of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, Hustvedt can ask questions others cannot ask about imagination, identity, epistemology, gendered power, and mortality. Her authoritative knowledge and her courage to challenge the status quo guide the reader to fresh epiphanies about what counts as human nature. The work is, in the end, a work of freedom.”
—Rita Charon, Columbia University
“The Delusions of Certainty is the best book on the mind-body problem I have ever read. Perhaps only a great novelist and essayist can address what neuroscientists and philosophers fail to question. Siri Hustvedt takes the reader on an inspiring journey into highly relevant and often unanswered questions about what it means to be human.”
—Vittorio Gallese, University of Parma
Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her “canonical” (Publishers Weekly) and “absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews) collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped—and often distorted and confused—contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology.
—Antonio Damasio, bestselling author of Descartes’ Error and Self Comes to Mind
“Siri Hustvedt proves her membership in the highest rank of neuroscientists and philosophers who probe the nature of thought and the workings of consciousness. A novelist and a student of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, Hustvedt can ask questions others cannot ask about imagination, identity, epistemology, gendered power, and mortality. Her authoritative knowledge and her courage to challenge the status quo guide the reader to fresh epiphanies about what counts as human nature. The work is, in the end, a work of freedom.”
—Rita Charon, Columbia University
“The Delusions of Certainty is the best book on the mind-body problem I have ever read. Perhaps only a great novelist and essayist can address what neuroscientists and philosophers fail to question. Siri Hustvedt takes the reader on an inspiring journey into highly relevant and often unanswered questions about what it means to be human.”
—Vittorio Gallese, University of Parma
Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her “canonical” (Publishers Weekly) and “absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews) collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped—and often distorted and confused—contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology.
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About the author
Siri Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, four collections of essays, two works of nonfiction, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her novel The Blazing World was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her many other awards include the Princess of Asturias Prize, the European Essay Prize and the Gabarron International Award for Thought and Humanities. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
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