In our modern world we routinely face the kinds of evil which make wrong-doing of the past seem comparatively harmless. At the same time, it can sometimes be hard to see evil in the midst of apparent striving for good.In this classic work, Alfred Schütze argues that we can only address these issues by recognising evil in its many guises. In particular, he distinguishes between two opposing forms of evil, whose enigmatic development he traces in mythology, literature and scientific thought.This is a challenging but rewarding book which gets to the heart of many contemporary struggles and offers approaches which could help.

Striking toward peace and harmony the human being is ceasely torn apart in personal, social, national life by wars, feuds, inequities and intimate personal conflicts for which there seems to be no respite. Does the human condition in interaction with others imply a constant adversity? Or, is this conflict owing to an interior or external factor of evil governing our attitudes and conduct toward the other person? To what criteria should I refer for appreciation, judgment, direction concerning my attitudes and my actions as they bear on the well-being of others? At the roots of these questions lies human experience which ought to be appropriately clarified before entering into speculative abstractions of the ethical theories and precepts. Literature, which in its very gist, dwells upon disentangling in multiple perspective the peripeteia of our life-experience offers us a unique field of source-material for moral and ethical investigations. Literature brings preeminently to light the Moral Sentiment which pervades our life with others -- our existence tout court. Being modulated through the course of our experiences the Moral Sentiment sustains the very sense of literature and of personal human life (Tymieniecka).

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912–1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis, invented the computer and artificial intelligence, and anticipated gay liberation by decades—all before his suicide at age forty-one. This New York Times bestselling biography of the founder of computer science, with a new preface by the author that addresses Turing’s royal pardon in 2013, is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life. Capturing both the inner and outer drama of Turing’s life, Andrew Hodges tells how Turing’s revolutionary idea of 1936—the concept of a universal machine—laid the foundation for the modern computer and how Turing brought the idea to practical realization in 1945 with his electronic design. The book also tells how this work was directly related to Turing’s leading role in breaking the German Enigma ciphers during World War II, a scientific triumph that was critical to Allied victory in the Atlantic. At the same time, this is the tragic account of a man who, despite his wartime service, was eventually arrested, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to undergo a humiliating treatment program—all for trying to live honestly in a society that defined homosexuality as a crime. The inspiration for a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, Alan Turing: The Enigma is a gripping story of mathematics, computers, cryptography, and homosexual persecution.

This volume begins with a brief overview of the most important features of Ricoeur's philosophical journey accompanied by a number of studies on the subject. The second part of the study is devoted to other issues in Ricoeur's work based upon five critical exchanges with the author over the last 25 years.

The crimes of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Dennis Rader, and other high-profile killers are so breathtakingly awful that most people would not hesitate to label them evil. In this groundbreaking book, renowned psychiatrist Michael H. Stone-host of Discovery Channel's former series Most Evil-uses this common emotional reaction to horrifying acts as his starting point to explore the concept and reality of evil from a new perspective. In an in-depth discussion of the personality traits and behavior that constitute evil across a wide spectrum, Dr. Stone takes a clarifying scientific approach to a topic that for centuries has been inadequately explained by religious doctrines.Basing his analysis on the detailed biographies of more than 600 violent criminals, Stone has created a 22-level hierarchy of evil behavior, which loosely reflects the structure of Dante's Inferno. He traces two salient personality traits that run the gamut from those who commit crimes of passion to perpetrators of the worst crimes-sadistic torture and murder. One trait is narcissism, as exhibited in people who are so self-centered that they have little or no ability to care about their victims. The other is aggression, the use of power over another person to inflict humiliation, suffering, and death.Stone then turns to the various factors that, singly or intertwined, contribute to pushing certain people over the edge into committing heinous crimes. They include heredity, adverse environments, violence-prone cultures, mental illness or brain injury, and abuse of mind-altering drugs. All are considered in the search for the root causes of evil behavior.What do psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience tell us about the minds of those whose actions could be described as evil? And what will that mean for the rest of us? Stone discusses how an increased understanding of the causes of evil will affect the justice system. He predicts a day when certain persons can safely be declared salvageable and restored to society and when early signs of violence in children may be corrected before potentially dangerous patterns become entrenched.Michael H. Stone, MD (New York, NY) is professor of clinical psychiatry at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the author of ten books, most recently Personality Disorders: Treatable and Untreatable, and over two hundred professional articles and book chapters. He is also the host of Discovery Channel's former series Most Evil and has been featured in the New York Times, Psychology Today, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, the London Times, the BBAC, and Newsday, among many other media outlets.