Rebecca Goldstein's 'Mattering Instinct': the one need that drives and divides us

The answers to the question of what separates us from other animals are familiar enough: language, reason, the use of tools, the knowledge of death.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein proposes another candidate: the need to matter.

The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, published by W. W. Norton in January, follows that single drive from first page to last.

The argument#

Every living thing, Goldstein writes, strives to preserve itself. In human beings that basic drive has been transformed into something that goes beyond biological survival: the need not merely to exist, but to believe that one's existence carries weight.

The word mattering in the title carries two senses in English at once — to be of importance, and to be counted; Turkish has no single word that will hold both. What Goldstein means is this: not simply to live, but to have one's life registered somewhere.

That need, on her account, stands behind humanity's greatest achievements. Science, art, philosophy, political struggle — all of them are, in one way or another, projects of mattering.

Four routes#

The book's spine is the four different routes by which people pursue their search for significance.

Transcendence. Mattering by attaching oneself to something larger than oneself — a religion, a cause, a nation, an ideal.

Social connection. Being seen, loved, remembered by others; belonging to a community.

Excellence. Doing something well; producing value through mastery, craft, knowledge or art.

Competition. Standing out by comparison with others; climbing the ranking.

The point Goldstein presses is that the four are not morally equivalent. The first three largely enlarge the total; the fourth sets up a zero-sum game, in which my mattering can increase only as yours diminishes.

Where the division comes from#

The second half of the book ties the thesis to present discontents.

The three most stubborn afflictions of modern societies — loneliness, extremism and polarisation — are for Goldstein so many faces of a need to matter that has gone unmet.

Loneliness is the severing of the most elementary source of mattering, which is being seen by others. Extremism is a quick substitute that appears where the route of transcendence has been closed off: a radical cause promises the individual historical weight in a single stroke. Polarisation is the route of competition carried up to the scale of society — diminishing the other group becomes the cheapest way of enlarging the standing of one's own.

The conclusion Goldstein draws is not pessimistic, but nor is it comforting: these three problems cannot be solved one at a time, because they are fed from the same source.

Method#

Goldstein's business is to run biology, psychology and philosophy together. It is her known way of working.

A MacArthur fellow and a recipient of the United States National Humanities Medal, Goldstein is both a philosopher and a novelist. Incompleteness, her account of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, Betraying Spinoza, and Plato at the Googleplex, which brings ancient philosophy into present-day argument, all follow the same method: opening a technical philosophical matter to a wide readership through the instruments of fiction and narrative.

The concept of mattering is not new either. Goldstein first set out the idea years ago in a talk at Edge.org and developed it in later work. The book is that thought grown to maturity.

Philosophical background#

The book's thesis is not alone in the history of philosophy.

Hegel's concept of recognition holds that self-consciousness depends on being recognised by another consciousness. Charles Taylor placed that idea at the centre of modern identity politics. Axel Honneth read the struggle for recognition as the basic language of social conflict.

Goldstein's contribution is to situate this tradition somewhere between philosophical anthropology and psychology: recognition is not merely a social demand but a motivational structure specific to the human species.

This is also where the book is most open to challenge. Is the mattering instinct really an instinct, or a culturally shaped desire? Goldstein defends the first answer; reviewers have already indicated that she will be pushed hard on the point.

Book details#

• Author: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
• Original title: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 13 January 2026
• ISBN: 9781324096856

No Turkish translation has yet been announced. Goldstein's principal books other than Plato at the Googleplex are available in Turkish.