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Evil in the Western Philosophical Tradition

By Gavin Rae

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£115.00

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About this book

Analyses the history of Western conceptions of evil, showing it to be remarkably complex, differentiated and contested
  • Questions any straightforward secular–theology dichotomy by showing that theological motifs, idea, and figures continue to implicitly influence so-called ‘secular’ thinking on evil
  • Demonstrates the breadth and depth of thinking on evil by looking at thinkers not normally included in this analysis, such as Jacques Lacan and Cornelius Castoriadis
  • Relevant to those working in political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion and the history of philosophy

Charting a sweeping history of evil within the Western philosophical tradition, Gavin Rae shows that the problem of evil – as a conceptual problem – came to the fore with the rise of monotheism. Rae traces the problem of evil from early and Medieval Christian philosophy to modern philosophy, German Idealism, post-structuralism and contemporary analytic philosophy and secularisation.

Reviews

Rae eschews what he calls the divide between pre- and post-Kantian conceptualizations of evil [...] and aims to show that theological language, assumptions, and motifs are implicit in secular analyses of evil.
The idea of evil is at the centre of a lively philosophical debate, and this book is an important and distinctive contribution, providing a philosophical history of the concept in the western tradition. Ranging from the Christian tradition to the secular, and from philosophical approaches to the psychoanalytical, it provides an in-depth study of the key thinkers who have contributed to the historical roots of this debate.
Table of contents

PrefaceIntroduction

Part I: Theological Foundations

1. The Rise of the Problem of Evil

2. Augustine, Free Will, and Evil

3. Aquinas, Privation, and Original Sin

4. Descartes and the Evil of Error

5. Leibniz and Theodicy: Evil as the Good

Part II: From Autonomous Reason to History

6. Kant on Radical Evil

7. Schelling and the Metaphysics of Evil

8. Nietzsche and the Genealogy of Evil

Part III: Socialisation and Psychoanalysis

9. Arendt on Evil: From the Radical to the Banal

10. Lacan and the Symbolic Function of Evil

11. Castoriadis: Evil and the Social Imaginary

Part IV. The Subjects of Evil

12. The Perpetrators of Evil

13. Remembering the Victims

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Gavin Rae

Gavin Rae is Professor in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of socio-political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, ontology, and ethics. Besides over sixty published articles and book chapters, he is the author of eight monographs, the most recent of which are The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), and Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth Century Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). He has also co-edited six volumes, the most recent of which are Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025—with Emma Ingala), and Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (Routledge, 2021—with Emma Ingala).