"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 defence of universalism in an age that often distrusts it. Director Emeritus of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam and an American thinker shaped by the Civil Rights era, she treats philosophy as a living force for intellectual and political action. Her most recent book, Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era brings philosophy to bear upon modern history and contemporary politics to leave us with an enlightened understanding of both.

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. From 2000 to 2026 she led the Einstein Forum, producing a body of work—ten 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