.gif)
Grown-Up Idealists
by Susan Neiman
Harcourt, 2008 480 pp $27
Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal
by Rob Riemen
Yale University Press, 2008 116 pp $22
IN 2001 Susan Neiman published Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. One of her goals was to nudge philosophy away from the seminar rooms and scholarly journals, where it revels in arcane themes, and back into the public sphere, its proper dwelling ground. Philosophy was born in the marketplace of Athens, where Socrates and his adversaries would debate topics such as the nature of courage, justice, virtue, and truth. Neiman, who directs the Einstein Forum in Berlin, is a former student of the illustrious Harvard political philosopher John Rawls. She describes how she once urged her mentor to address pressing contemporary issues such as the Holocaust. Rawls demurred, sheepishly admitt...
» Want to continue? Login below:
