The Delusions of Certainty

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.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.The Delusions of Certainty reads like the work of a talented teacher who has the drive and the ability to organise and present - in an exceptionally clear, clean, even limpid voice - a monumental amount of abstract information. It's hard to overstate the pleasure and the comfort that such demystification provides the scientifically uninitiated; it does indeed make the world feel larger, more expansive, more alive to the touch. - New York Times Book ReviewThe 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.