Synopsis
How can we know anything?
What is justice?
Why is there evil in the world?
What is the source of truth?
Is it possible for God not to exist?
Can we really believe what we see?
These are some of the questions that have intrigued the world’s greatest thinkers over the ages. They are questions that make us think about the way we live, work, relate to each other, and see the world. In elegant and accessible prose, the eminent philosopher Leszek Kolakowski explores the essence of these ideas and their ongoing relevance as he introduces us to the great figures of Western thought: from Socrates to St. Augustine, Descartes to Nietzsche, and beyond.
Reflecting on the great issues that animate our lives—good and evil, truth and beauty, faith and the soul, free will and consciousness—Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? offers a guided tour of Western philosophy by one of the world’s greatest living experts.
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About the Author
Leszek Kolakowski is currently senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, McGill University, UC Berkeley, and Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including his masterpiece and magnum opus Main Currents of Marxism, published in three volumes in the 1970s and recently reissued in a single volume by Norton. He is the recipient of many major international awards, including the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society (2007), the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences awarded for lifetime achievement in the humanistic and social sciences (2004), a MacArthur ("genius") Fellowship (1983) as well as the German Booksellers Peace Prize (1977), the Erasmus Prize (1980) and the Veillon Foundation European Prize for the Essay (1980). He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a fellow of the Académie Universelle des Cultures, and a Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Oxford, England.
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