'“Philosophy's greatest task is to enlarge our sense of possibility.”
Susan Neiman is a philosopher pressing for a renewed commitment to Enlightenment morality, politics, and metaphysics—a defense of universalism in an age that often distrusts it. Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam and an American thinker shaped by the Civil Rights era, she treats philosophy not as an academic relic but as a living force for intellectual and political action. Her most recent book, Left Is Not Woke, challenges the moral frameworks that have overtaken much of the contemporary left, arguing that solidarity cannot survive without shared principles.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Neiman left high school to join activists working for peace and justice before studying philosophy at Harvard, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1986. Since 2000 she has led the Einstein Forum, producing a body of work—nine books translated into 15 languages—that ranges from the problem of evil to the possibilities of moral progress, and has earned awards from PEN, the Association of American Publishers, and the American Academy of Religion.
"Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink." — The Guardian
