{"id":33,"date":"2025-08-16T16:01:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/16\/the-riddle-of-evil-and-the-pyrrhonian-dont-care\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T16:01:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:01:43","slug":"the-riddle-of-evil-and-the-pyrrhonian-dont-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/16\/the-riddle-of-evil-and-the-pyrrhonian-dont-care\/","title":{"rendered":"The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Substack<\/em> latest<\/a> on the aporetics of evil.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Today I preach upon a text from Karl Jaspers wherein he comments on St. Augustine (Plato and Augustine<\/em>, ed. Arendt, tr. Mannheim, Harcourt 1962, p. 110):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In interminable discussions, men have tried to sharpen and clarify this contradiction: on the one hand, evil is a mere clouding of the good, a shadow, a deficiency; on the other hand, it is an enormously effective power. But no one has succeeded in resolving it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The problem is genuine, the problem is humanly important, and yet it gives every indication of being intractable. Jaspers is right: no one has ever solved it. To sharpen the contradiction:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) Evil is privatio boni<\/em>: nothing independently real, but a mere lack of good, parasitic upon the good. It has no positive entitative status.<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Evil is not a mere lack of good, but an enormously effective power in its own right. It has a positive entitative status.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A tough nut to crack, an aporetic dyad, each limb of which makes a very serious claim on our attention. And yet the limbs cannot both be true. Philosophy is its problems, and when a problem is expressed as an aporetic polyad, then I say it is in canonical form.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Substack latest on the aporetics of evil.   Today I preach upon a text from Karl Jaspers wherein he comments on St. Augustine (Plato and Augustine, ed. Arendt, tr. Mannheim, Harcourt 1962, p. 110): In interminable discussions, men have tried to sharpen and clarify this contradiction: on the one hand, evil is a mere clouding of … Continue reading “The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,50,51,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-skepticism","category-aporetics","category-good-and-evil","category-jaspers","category-substack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}