Evil: A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology

Where does evil come from? How is it that we do evil? This book falls into three parts. The fi rst part deals with the magnitude and complexity of the problem of evil from a phenomenological perspective. The second part investigates the levels of speculation on the origin and nature of evil. The third discusses thinking, acting and feeling in connection with evil. The discussion runs in the classic intellectual tradition from Augustine, through Hegel, Leibnitz, Kant, and Nietzsche. But the voice is always that of Paul Ricoeur himself, though he also refers to modern writers like Harold Kushner (When Bad Things Happen to Good People) and John K. Roth (Encountering Evil). Ricoeur considers here man’s vulnerability to evil with depth and matchless sensitivity.

Paul Ricoeur was a leading French thinker best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation. His first major work was ＂Philosophy of Will＂ published in the UK in 1980. Other translated works include ＂The Symbolization of Evil＂ and T＂he Conflict of Interpretations.＂ Born in 1913 he was a professor at Nanterre and Strasbourg. In 2004, he was awarded the second John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences (shared with Jaroslav Pelikan). Ricoeur died in 2005.