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Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy : An Alternative History of Philosophy by Susan Neiman is a philosophy book available to read on EtoBox.

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Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense. For eighteenth-century Europeans, the Lisbon earthquake was manifest evil. Today we view evil as a matter of human cruelty, and Auschwitz as its extreme incarnation. Examining our understanding of evil from the Inquisition to contemporary terrorism, Susan Neiman explores who we have become in the three centuries that separate us from the early Enlightenment. In the process, she rewrites the history of modern thought and points philosophy back to the questions that originally animated it. Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts - combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade - eroded belief in Go

Who reads Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy : An Alternative History of Philosophy?

Author

Susan Neiman

Publisher

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

Published

2004

Language

EN

ISBN

9780691117928

Category

philosophy

Subjects

Fiction, Reference, Religion