Enlightenment, Values, and Political Practice

A Conversation with Susan Neiman

In this episode Jonathan Keir und Thomas Kühn talk to Susan Neiman, who is a German-American philosopher. Her theoretical focus is the philosophy of Enlightenment, for example in the works of Immanuel Kant, moral philosophy and politics. As Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Susan Neiman confirmed her allegiance to the left-liberal Jewish intellectual tradition with the bestselling 2023 book Left Is Not Woke. Through her engagement with the humanist values of the Enlightenment and her exploration of the concrete effects of theoretical reflections on political practice, we see a kinship between her thinking and that of Erich Fromm.