Philosophers have spent the past 300 years trying to come up with a better definition of evil than the one religion seems to offer, or so one philosopher, Susan Neiman, says in a new book, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. This may seem perfectly obvious, but as a philosophical claim it is fairly controversial, because most historians of the subject would say that modern philosophy has been so anxious to differentiate itself from theology that it refused to talk about evil at all.
— New York Times

Life is lived -- and tentative meaning is forged -- in the border zone between sense and senselessness: That is the lesson of this profound and provocative book. It is a lesson worth pondering as we prepare to commemorate Sept. 11 and to revisit the question of why such horrors happen in the first place.
— Wall Street Journal

The word "evil" gets thrown around pretty frequently, especially in connection with certain Axes, but Einstein Forum director and former philosophy professor Susan Neiman reminds us that the existence of evil is a theological and intellectual dilemma through modern Western intellectual history in fact, she argues in her erudite and accessible Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, the question of evil is at the heart of modern philosophy. Neiman looks at how philosophers and writers Leibniz and Arendt, Pope and Sade have sought to explain evil, and traces two divergent strains of thought: one that insists we must try to understand moral evil, and another that maintains we must not. (Sept.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

The current director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Neiman (The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant) examines the problem of evil, which she posits as central to philosophy since the 17th century. Philosophy is driven by the need to make sense of a world riddled with natural and moral evil and by our failures to do so. Leibniz (who thought this must be the best of all possible worlds) and Hegel (who thought reality must ultimately prove to be rational) are keys to her story, but Kant's effort to show that our best insights into reality stem from moral sensibilities, and Nietzsche, on the other side, who regarded most attempts to find a meaningful transcendent as moral cowardice, play large roles. Neiman begins with the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, perceived at the time as a manifestation of evil, but science and technology are (slowly) teaching us how to deal with such natural calamities. Moral evil, on the other hand, has not elicited as effective a response. Neiman is sympathetic to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and attentive to Emmanuel L vinas, who insisted that we must recover the transcendent or lose our rationality. Oddly, she ignores 20th-century attempts (by Samuel Alexander, Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, etc.) to bring logic to bear on the subject. Still, this is a deeply moving and scholarly book that will interest many general readers. Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

"Winner of the 2002 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy, Association of American Publishers"

"Winner of the 2003 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, American Academy of Religion"

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003

"This great work....looks into these abysses with astonishing fearlessness."

"Clear, elegant and inviting...suddenly, (philosophy) is again a matter of life and death."

"The American philosopher Susan Neiman has written the book for this world-political hour."

"An erudite and compelling intellectual treatise that is profoundly interesting, often witty, and constructed without resorting to jargon or obfuscation. . . . In reorienting the history of philosophy, she has made it come alive. . . . This is a fine, even elegant book."

"Superb... Neiman's claim to have written an alternative history is not an empty boast."

"The American philosopher Susan Neiman has written the book for this world-political hour."

"The American philosopher Susan Neiman has written the book for this world-political hour."

Neiman's book is written with considerable flair, as many critics have already noted, but it possesses a far rarer and more valuable quality: moral seriousness. Her argument builds a powerful emotional force, a sense of deep inevitability. . . . It is not often that a work of such dark conclusions has felt so hopeful and brave.

Neiman's narrative . . . sheds light not just on the writings of particular thinkers, but also on their relation to one another. And it helps us begin to understand certain facts about the modern period that current philosophers find baffling.

Neiman's audacity and occasionally morbid wit are a welcome addition to contemporary philosophy. If there is any hope after Auschwitz, we may find it in the fact that human minds will not stop trying to make some kind of meaning out of it.

Neiman argues that, confronted with the enormity of the Holocaust, 20th-century thinkers found new grounds to conclude that what we call evil reflects nothing so much as the unintelligibility of the world. . . . [Her] conclusion is that we should neither abandon reason nor demand the impossible from it but rather rely on it as much as we can to identify the forms of suffering and acts of cruelty that we have the power to prevent, remedy or diminish.

Neiman argues that when we ask why the world is the way it is, rather than the way it ought to be, that's the same as thinking about evil. . . . If there is only a single standard of good behavior, then no matter how honestly we believe in our causes—in democracy, for instance, as opposed to tyranny or religious totalitarianism—we are never allowed to stop worrying about our own morality when we march forth to defend them.

Neiman's book is a welcome contribution to a philosophical conversation too long neglected.

We badly need alternative histories of philosophy. The story told (by me, among others) cries out for supplementation. . . . Neiman's snazzy prose makes this book a pleasure to read, as well as an immensely welcome change from the sort of history of philosophy to which we have become accustomed.

This is an accessible work of philosophy in the best sense, sharply focused on matters of vital human concern and free of the domain tics that mar even allegedly popular works by Anglo-American philosophers.

Neiman follows the argument like a sleuth, and, indeed, her book is a kind of thriller: What is it that menaces us? Will we find what evil is? And how may we escape it? The path leads from a God found absent past a Nature that's indifferent till it fetches up at the house of a man himself. . . . Neiman leads the reader through a careful analysis of the relation of intention, act, and consequence to kinds of useful knowledge and degrees of awareness.

Eloquent... [Neiman argues that] evil is not just an ethical violation, it disrupts and challenges our interpretation of the world.

A brilliant new book. . . . No summary can convey the intellectual firepower of Neiman's book. Within her field of interest, she seems not only to have read everything but to have understood it at the deepest level.

Provocative and profound.

Scintillating and self-disciplined - a very rare thing in a philosopher.

Evil has become the subject of one book after another, but [this] is one book unlike any other - by a philosopher unlike any other.

Neiman's book is written with considerable flair, as many critics have already noted, but it possesses a far rarer and more valuable quality: moral seriousness. Her argument builds a powerful emotional force, a sense of deep inevitability. . . . It is not often that a work of such dark conclusions has felt so hopeful and brave.
— Mark Kingwell

Neiman's narrative . . . sheds light not just on the writings of particular thinkers, but also on their relation to one another. And it helps us begin to understand certain facts about the modern period that current philosophers find baffling.
— Thomas Hibbs

Neiman's audacity and occasionally morbid wit are a welcome addition to contemporary philosophy. If there is any hope after Auschwitz, we may find it in the fact that human minds will not stop trying to make some kind of meaning out of it.
— Alan Wolfe

Neiman argues that, confronted with the enormity of the Holocaust, 20th-century thinkers found new grounds to conclude that what we call evil reflects nothing so much as the unintelligibility of the world. . . . [Her] conclusion is that we should neither abandon reason nor demand the impossible from it but rather rely on it as much as we can to identify the forms of suffering and acts of cruelty that we have the power to prevent, remedy or diminish.
— Peter Berkowitz

Neiman argues that when we ask why the world is the way it is, rather than the way it ought to be, that's the same as thinking about evil. . . . If there is only a single standard of good behavior, then no matter how honestly we believe in our causes—in democracy, for instance, as opposed to tyranny or religious totalitarianism—we are never allowed to stop worrying about our own morality when we march forth to defend them.
— Judith Shulevitz

Neiman's book is a welcome contribution to a philosophical conversation too long neglected.
— Barry Allen

We badly need alternative histories of philosophy. The story told (by me, among others) cries out for supplementation. . . . Neiman's snazzy prose makes this book a pleasure to read, as well as an immensely welcome change from the sort of history of philosophy to which we have become accustomed.
— Richard Rorty

This is an accessible work of philosophy in the best sense, sharply focused on matters of vital human concern and free of the domain tics that mar even allegedly popular works by Anglo-American philosophers.
— Mark Lilla

Neiman follows the argument like a sleuth, and, indeed, her book is a kind of thriller: What is it that menaces us? Will we find what evil is? And how may we escape it? The path leads from a God found absent past a Nature that's indifferent till it fetches up at the house of a man himself. . . . Neiman leads the reader through a careful analysis of the relation of intention, act, and consequence to kinds of useful knowledge and degrees of awareness.
— William H. Gass

Eloquent... [Neiman argues that] evil is not just an ethical violation, it disrupts and challenges our interpretation of the world.
— Edward Rothstein

A brilliant new book. . . . No summary can convey the intellectual firepower of Neiman's book. Within her field of interest, she seems not only to have read everything but to have understood it at the deepest level.
— William C. Placher

Provocative and profound.
— Damon Linker

Scintillating and self-disciplined - a very rare thing in a philosopher.
— Jonathan Ree

Evil has become the subject of one book after another, but [this] is one book unlike any other - by a philosopher unlike any other.
— Bill Moyers

Neiman's book is a welcome contribution to a philosophical conversation too long neglected.
— Barry Allen

The American philosopher Susan Neiman has written the book for this world-political hour.