Susan Neiman's Evil In Modern Thought

Evil threatens human reason, it provokes human hope that the wold makes sense. Today evil is. Viewed as a substance of human cruelty. Susan Neiman writes in her novel, Evil in Modern Thought: an alternative history of philosophy, of the characteristics of the twentieth-century philosophy, is "the absence of explicit discussion of the problem of evil" (288). Neiman constructs a compelling case that actually the problem of evil is the central concern in the history of philosophy and is the "guiding force of modern thought" (2-3). Neiman's book is an examination of the human struggle that is for self-understanding, which is conveyed by philosophers. In her book, Neiman looks at how philosophers, such as Leibniz and pope, have looked to explain

From the fact that the first and last book span works authored by him, "the Philosopher's Confession" and the "Theodicy", were both committed to this problem of evil. Leibniz lived within two eras, ears by which evil was taken to present different problems for the monotheistic philosopher Leibniz justifies God's ways to man by proclaiming in essence that God could con have done any better than he did. The Lisbon earthquake revealed Leibniz to ridicule and dishonor the effort to explain natural evil as part of a rational scheme. Neiman stated that the earthquake shocked western civilization more than any even since the fall of Rome. For those who may believe that God could have made the world much better and decided not to, therefore thinks that God is not as good as he could be. Leibniz's theodicy is an extensive response to the work of Bayle, who minced hashed fewer words. Leibniz created the word theodicy in order to detail the defense of God in categories taken from legal discourse. The Theodicy dedicated more attention to divine that to human freedom, and it makes reference more to human choice and passion with means of an example than anything else. The theodicy sets out to validate the conformity of faith with reason. In the book chapter 18 and in other parts of the Theodicy, Leibniz provided himself as a defends of the faith, in oppose to

Pope differs from Leibniz, possible they share certain. Moral claims, however, their principal is completely different. Pope might seem to merely mold the well-meant orthodoxies which Leibniz defended, however, he undermines them, as many of his contemporaries identified. Pope appears to assert the unbroken goodness of creation as it stands; the existence of order behind appearance which assures that unbroken goodness; and the resumptions and ignorance of anyone who dares to suggest the world could be improved (33). Pope wrote in the poem, hence making amusing and entertaining a message to which modern reader will little else to enjoy. Pope made the decision to write in philosophical poetry because probably neither medium alone was good enough to express what he wanted. The squabble between poetry and philosophy is a traditional one, poetry in itself does not seek the types of judgments of meaning and morals that pope sometimes intended. However, philosophy on its own is too simple and straightforward to do justice to the complexity pope saw in the human condition. Pope's essay records the struggles that are between hope and despair that can occur daily in anyone who thinks about the questions he raised. Pope denied that humans can understand the order of the universe and saw it foolish and arrogant to try. This equals to the claim that only faith can resolve the problem of evil with which Leibniz had