Civilization Without Evil in Leszek Kołakowski’s Works

Abstract

Leszek Kołakowski had a keen interest in the phenomenon of evil, and many of his works address this topic. Kołakowski made attempts to explore the origin of evil, human experiences of evil, changes in beliefs about evil in European consciousness throughout the ages, and he commented on the proposition that the world should be defined as free of evil. In his works, the phenomenon of evil was examined through the lens of two contextual perspectives: episteme and sacrum. This article explores the ways in which contemporary readers of Kołakowski’s works approach the problem of evil from these two perspectives. The paper discusses Kołakowski’s attempts to analyze the process of eliminating the traditional divide between good and evil and the rejection of Reason, Truth and Virtue in the Platonic and Aristotelean sense.