Hannah Arendt

This was a draft written in a hurry for a submission somewhere. Like all submissions done in a hurry this is not the perfected work. This paper shows how modernist Yogic praxes are totalitarian in the sense in which Hannah Arendt discusses totalitarianism. Further it attacks structuralist critiques of Yoga and comments on the state of Hindu and even, Buddhist studies today. One has to be cautious in reading this paper since the author ranges through many references which have not (...) been brought out fully. (shrink)

This paper examines the unique structures of identity formation within the craftsperson/maker mindset and their relation to Western views of work and labor. The contemporary Maker Movement has its origins not only in the internet revolution, but also in the revival of handicraft during the last several economic recessions. Economic uncertainty drives people toward the ideals and practices of craft as a way to regain a sense of agency and control. One learns how to become an active participant in our (...) material lives by making and maintaining the objects that surround us. This orientation toward craft has the potential to alter the practitioner's sense of self going forward. I will argue that the work-based nature of craft leads to a unique and positive sense of self that the assumed freedom of ‘art’ and intellectualized labor unwittingly discourages. Tacit mechanisms shape the craft mindset through emphasis on skill, mastery of materials, polymathic problem solving, and quality. Hannah Arendt’s notion of the vita activa and Martin Heidegger’s arguments on modern technology reveal the dynamics between physical and intellectual labor and how many have greatly misunderstood the ‘essence’ of the craftsperson’s work. Peter Dormer and Glenn Adamson’s analysis of the nature of craft demonstrate how these two lines of thought can be unified into one system of selfhood granting the greater sense of agency many seek without relying on an individualized sense of self. The Richard Sennett shows how this sense of self challenges the desire to liberate ourselves from labor via technology and poetic autonomy as seen in Franco Berardi’s Manifesto of Post-Futurism. Malcolm Gladwell's work on intuition examines the impact of this tacit craft mindset and the psychological mechanisms that drive it. This will allow Peter Korn’s first-hand account of his own craft practice to demonstrate this structure and its inherent points of resistance against today’s hyper-individualized and resultingly selfish ways of life. Throughout this paper, a clear emphasis on materiality as a profound source of embodied knowledge will be maintained to reveal craftspersonhood as a source of deep existential fulfillment and practical philosophy. Acknowledging and embracing our intrinsic materiality and all that it has to teach us is imperative in the face of a consumption-centric culture of excess and exploitation that looms over much of the West. (shrink)

In his recently published posthumous works "Prefiguration" and "The Rigorism of Truth" Hans Blumenberg surprisingly steps into the area of political history that he had left widely unconsidered in "Work on Myth". While "Prefiguration" tackles the “demonic” aspects of Napoleon and Hitler that Blumenberg tries to dismantle and bring into derision, in "Rigorism of Truth" he attacks Hannah Arendt's phrase of the Banality of Evil in relation to the Jerusalem trial against Adolf Eichmann in 1961. In this latter issue Blumenberg (...) defends the demonic he sees culminated in the form of Eichmann to assert what he calls the “mythical dimension“ in the Israeli process of nation-building. To him, Eichmann represents a prototypical demon incarnate that must be slaughtered by the heroic character seen in young state Israel. This obviously turns Blumenberg's criticism of Napoleon and Hitler into an affirmation of political myths that, on the face of it, appears to be a contradiction in terms. The essay focuses on this theoretical tension and tries to point out that significance (“Bedeutsamkeit”) is not only a necessity for individual self-assertion (“Selbstbehauptung”) but also a category of communality that must be handled with care. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset and Hannah Arendt were two thinkers influenced by the phenomenological tradition for whom worldly experiences within a specific circumstance were essential to what it means to be human. This article, first, examines their notions of ‘amor mundi’ (Arendt) and ‘salvation of circumstance’ (Ortega), pointing out their similarities concerning the individual’s relationship to the world. It then moves on to investigate some of Ortega’s and Arendt’s conceptions about science, technology, and the concomitant bureaucratization and technocratization of the (...) world. The main thesis of this article will be that both thinkers fundamentally coincide on how the individual must relate to an increasingly scientifically and technologically-mediated world that produces isolation and mass–people. (shrink)

According to the traditional Western concept of freedom, the ability to exercise free will depends on the availability of options and the possibility to consciously decide which one to choose. Since neuroscientific research increasingly shows the limits of what we in fact consciously control, it seems that our belief in free will and hence in personal autonomy is in trouble. -/- A closer look at the phenomenology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) gives us reason to doubt the traditional concept of freedom (...) in terms of conscious control. Patients suffering from OCD experience themselves as unfree. The question is whether their lack of freedom is due to a lack of will power. Do they have too little conscious control over their thoughts and actions? Or could it be the opposite: are they exerting too much conscious control over their thoughts and actions? -/- In this chapter, we will argue that OCD patients testify to the general condition that exercising an increased conscious control over actions can in fact diminish the sense of agency rather than increase the experience of freedom. The experiences of these patients show that the traditional conception of freedom in terms of ‘free will’ has major shortcomings. There is an alternative, however, to be found in the work of Hannah Arendt. She advocates a conception of freedom as freedom in action. Combined with phenomenological insights on action, Arendt’s account of freedom helps us to get a more adequate understanding of the role of deliberation in the experience of freedom. We argue that the experience of freedom depends on the right balance between deliberate control and unreflective actions. (shrink)

O texto analisa quais teriam sido as razões estruturais pelas quais Habermas, no seu texto sobre a desobediência civil de 1983, estranhamente, não referencia o nome de Arendt, mas o de Rawls. Para isso, apresenta alguns elemen tos do t ratamento arendtiano da desobediên cia civil que inviabilizaram o alinhamento do trabalho de Habermas sobre a desobediência civil [1983] com aquele da pensadora. Por fim, aponta para as prox imidades da teoria de Habermas com aq uela de Rawls, muito embora (...) com ciência das diferenças importantes entre as duas propostas. (shrink)

This paper focuses on rubbish, especially single-use plas­tic packaging, and its relation to Hannah Arendt’s categories of the vita activa in The Human Condition (2018), namely, labour, work, and action. I argue that single-use plastic rubbish does not fit into any category of the vita activa, which is indicative of the nature of single-use plastic as a type of object that does not belong anywhere, neither in the earth or the world, in Arendt’s sense of the terms. What allows for (...) plastic waste to be produced while belonging no­where is an economic system focused on growth, which continues to contribute to our current climate and biodiversity crises. I propose economic degrowth as a potential solution to such issues, with continued reference to Arendt’s various arguments in The Human Condition. (shrink)

In the present article, I offer a new reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, specifically her argument that ideologies such as racism engender totalitarianism when the lonely and disenfranchised laborers of modern society develop a pathological fixation on formal logic, which I term “logomania.” That is, such logical deductions, from horrifically false premises, are the closest thing to thinking that individuals can engage in after their psyches, relationships, and communities have broken down. And it is only thus that (...) totalitarianism can achieve power, since it offers at least some form of connectedness and meaning, regardless how terrifying and violent. The danger persists, clearly, with the resurgence of the far Right, including in the extraordinary regime of Trump in the United States. From this I conclude that, along with the admirable calls to fight loneliness and rebuild our communities, we should also supplement all formal logical instruction and community education with instruction in creative thinking (including aesthetics), thereby discouraging the monomaniac reliance on formal logic as inadvertent weapon of totalitarianism. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt famously argued that acts of violence are corrosive to a free and plural politics. However, the broader implications of her critique of violence are less well known. Reading her concept of violence comprehensively, with regard to (ostensibly non-political) labor and work as well as action, this article reveals its broader relevance for contemporary political thought: the political question of violence lies at the heart of our ecological crisis and is crucial for the social structure of labor domination. While (...) Arendtian politics is without normative guarantees, the conceptual distinction between instrumental violence and free politics is crucial, because it renders the political judgment of violence possible. In every realm of human activity, the refusal to acknowledge violence stunts our capacity to care for the world. (shrink)

Phenomenology and ancient Greek philosophy. The title of this book, indicating these topics as its two main subjects, could give the impression that the subjects are held together by a circumstantial “and.” The title would then indicate a connection between phenomenology and a topic, ancient Greek philosophy, the way titles such as Art and Phenomenology, Phenomenology and Psychological Research, Phenomenology and Virtue Ethics do. This impression would be wrong. First, ancient Greek philosophers take pride of place in the dialogues initiated (...) by many phenomenologists with various figures from the history of philosophy. Second, this is not just because phenomenological philosophers have tended to regard ancient Greek philosophy as the revered beginning of Western thought, reflection upon which may help illuminate any topic modern human beings wish to inquire into or give it a kind of historical dignity. It is first and foremost because ancient Greek philosophy, understood as the scientific attempt to understand the world, ourselves, and our place in the world, in the phenomenological tradition is regarded as one important origin of contemporary Western philosophy and science, even if contemporary philosophy and science is also determined by a new ideal of philosophy that emerges in early modernity. Indeed, for most phenomenologists, Greek philosophy can be regarded as the roots supporting this new ideal—even if these roots are sometimes hidden from sight or forgotten. The main rationale for confronting ancient Greek philosophy phenomenologically is accordingly the attempt to bring to light in its full radicality the phenomenon “philosophy.” Unearthing philosophy as it was originally understood by Greek thinkers may, according to many phenomenologists at least, help us understand what philosophy in the full sense of the word was, has been, and may be again, but also what it has become or even degenerated into in modern times, for instance positivism. It is this way of approaching ancient Greek philosophy that we wish to concentrate on in this book, in the hope that the volume will prove instructive both to people who have an interest in ancient Greek philosophy and wish to know more about the phenomenological approach to it and to people who work within phenomenology and wish to know more about the various approaches to ancient Greek philosophy characterizing the phenomenological movement. We have therefore sought to make the introduction and the individual chapters accessible to non-experts, for instance by transliterating all Greek text, and confining quotes in other languages than English to footnotes and glosses. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s political thought is generally regarded as advocating nonviolence. Witnessing the rise of totalitarianism and its tragedy, she developed her political theory to recover the politica...

In “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Arendt explores whether there is a relationship between thinking and abstention from wrongdoing. Two propositions are used from Plato’s Gorgias to explore the normative dimension of thinking, conceived as internal dialogue between a two-in-one in the mind: that one should not be out of harmony with oneself and that it is better to suffer than do wrong. Arendt attempts to derives the second “moral” proposition from the first, a move which has been seen as weak. (...) This paper offers a new reading of the argument by bringing Arendt into closer dialogue with Plato. The argument is in fact grounded in the importance of plurality and relationality (to the thinking dialogue), and what is required to negotiate it: equality. Wrongdoers show a disdain for equality, and as such they are not collaboration-apt; so, there can be no collaborative dialogue with a wrongdoer. This generates the desired conclusion that if one is to think collaboratively and harmoniously (desired because the two exist in my one person), one should abstain from wrongdoing. (shrink)

Kimberlé Crenshaw arrived at her famous phrase “intersectionality” by carefully thinking through speeches and writings given to us by early Black feminists, such as like Sojourner Truth and Anna J. Cooper. In this paper, I expand on this groundbreaking work in two somewhat surprising ways. First, I bring the ideas of these early Black feminists together with important, related proposals from W.E.B. Du Bois, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir. Second, I relate these works to central ideas in (...) Kant’s practical philosophy in an effort to develop a Kantian theory of intersectionality. In addition to grasping the distinctive, destructive directions of oppressive forces aimed at women, the poor, and minorities, I seek to understand better the new, violently destructive elements found in European modernity, as evidenced both in European colonialization as well as the Holocaust. (shrink)

Abstract: Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil -/- This paper starts by sketching Kant’s four ideal legal and political conditions—'anarchy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘republic,’ and ‘barbarism’—before showing their usefulness for analyzing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called ‘state of nature’ (‘anarchy’) or in ‘civil society’ (‘republic’), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or ‘pockets’ of (...) our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant’s ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt’s ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a four-fold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression. (shrink)

This paper considers why obtaining and sustaining a good sexual life tends to be so challenging and why the temptation to settle for a bad one can be so alluring. We engage these questions by cultivating ideas found in the traditions of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of sex and love in dialogue with the works of two unlikely, canonical bedfellows—Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt. We propose that some sources of these challenges and temptations are patterned and manifold in that (...) they involve trying to transform, develop, integrate certain unruly emotional structures in oneself, including together with others. Other equally patterned and unruly sources track inherited oppressive or oppressed behaviors and feelings that make emotionally healthy, morally responsible realizations of sexual ways and being more difficult for all parties involved. In contrast to these patterned challenges, some difficulties that face us stem from the fact that humans are genuinely different from one another and evolving—individually, jointly, and collectively—in their sexual needs and wants. (shrink)

Using insights from two of the major proponents of the hermeneutical approach, Paul Ricoeur and Hannah Arendt—who both recognized the ethicopolitical importance of narrative and acknowledged some of the dangers associated with it—I will flesh out the worry that “narrativity” in political theory has been overly attentive to storytelling and not heedful enough of story listening. More specifically, even if, as Ricoeur says, “narrative intelligence” is crucial for self-understanding, that does not mean, as he invites us to, that we should (...) always seek to develop a “narrative identity” or become, as he says, “the narrator of our own life story.” I offer that, perhaps inadvertently, such an injunction might turn out to be detrimental to the “art of listening.” This, however, must also be cultivated if we want to do justice to our narrative character and expect narrative to have the political role that both Ricoeur and Arendt envisaged. Thus, although there certainly is a “redemptive power” in narrative, when the latter is understood primarily as the act of narration or as the telling of stories, there is a danger to it as well. Such a danger, I think, intensifies at a time like ours, when, as some scholars have noted, “communicative abundance” or the “ceaseless production of redundancy” in traditional and social media has often led to the impoverishment of the public conversation. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende discutir a concepção de aparência desenvolvida por Hannah Arendt na obra A Vida do Espírito (1977), tendo em vista a centralidade da questão como elemento inicial da reflexão sobre as atividades do espírito. Inicialmente, o texto discorre sobre parte dos atravessamentos teóricos presentes na interpretação arendtiana da aparência, concentrando-se no conteúdo de referência em Martin Heidegger. Como resultado, ocorre um afastamento realizado pela autora em relação à metafísica tradicional, e tal postura crítica será compreendida a partir do (...) diálogo com Heidegger e Kant. Assim, na sua transversalidade com a faculdade do pensar e com o ser em geral, entende-se que a crítica à metafísica é consequência direta da concepção de aparência proposta pela autora. Por fim, uma breve elucidação metodológica do conteúdo de A Vida do Espírito será apresentada, com o intuito de justificar seu caráter interpretativo baseado no método fenomenológico-hermenêutico aos moldes heideggerianos, em detrimento de uma descrição fenomenológica de inspiração husserliana. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the contemporary relevance of Hannah Arendt’s work insofar as it relates to US racism, imperialism, and migration. While Arendt denied that US migration policy and racism were linked or even similar to exercises of racialized sovereignty, totalitarian tactics, and mass displacement in Europe, I suggest that her analyses help us to understand important racialized dialectics between prison and camp, citizen and stateless, and external displacement and internal displacement. In effect, this essay suggests that many of Arendt’s (...) analyses of racism, migration, and camps are more relevant to US history and contemporary US reality than she did or would have admitted. Arendt’s work importantly suggested that the stateless were so rightless that they lacked even criminal rights. In many respects, the criminal-stateless binary accurately illustrates the rightlessness of refugees in contrast to the rights of US citizen-criminals. However, she partly fails to recognize how the dialectical opposition between foreigner and citizen-criminal could lead to less visible forms of overlap and convergence. Arendt’s binary also indicates an adherence to crypto-normativity, despite her professed antifoundational approach to political issues. Together, her theoretical strengths and certain failures illuminate our own (mis)understandings of a set of complex circumstances experienced today. (shrink)

Hanna Pitkin explains that Arendt’s defense of collective political action tends to reify and mystify an opposing concept Arendt calls ‘the Social’. Was Arendt actually right about the rise of ‘the Social’? Does the deep-set global mass entertainment culture tend to sap action even when it purportedly celebrates it? And what can viewing publics and counter-publics tell us about the meaning and reception of ‘the Social’, especially in this massively online era? This article surveys different ways of thinking about the (...) basic problem presented by American popular action cinema, and especially big-budget Hollywood action films, through an Arendtian lens. In presenting this overview, the article looks to reorient traditional philosophical concerns about screen violence and its censorship, and to offer a holistic reappraisal of ‘the Social’ and ‘action’ by placing democratic theory in closer dialogue with film studies. (shrink)

In this article, I critically reassess Iris Marion Young's late works, which centre on the distinction between liability and social connection responsibility. I concur with Young's diagnosis that structural injustices call for a new conception of responsibility, but I reject several core assumptions that underpin her distinction between two models and argue for a different way of conceptualising responsibility to address structural injustices. I show that Young's categorical separation of guilt and responsibility is not supported by the writings of Hannah (...) Arendt, which Young draws on, and that it is also untenable on independent systematic grounds. Furthermore, I argue that several of Young's other criteria fail to clearly demarcate two distinct phenomena. I therefore propose to transcend Young's distinction between two models in favour of a related, but conceptually different distinction between two forms of responsibility: interactional and structural. Embracing this terminology facilitates the conceptualisation of the general features of responsibility that are shared by both forms, including their retrospective and prospective time-direction and their applicability to individual, joint and group agency. The distinction between interactional and structural responsibility also yields a more compelling general account of the role of background structures, and of blame within ascriptions of political responsibility. (shrink)

Este artigo articula a figura do contador de estórias e o conceito de verdade factual para refletir sobre elementos da filosofia de Hannah Arendt importantes também à compreensão da nossa situação política. Nele, o pensamento de Arendt é visto como tributário da história e disposto a um modelo alternativo de pensar: o pensamento narracional. Duas ideias que giram em torno da figura do contador de estórias e do conceito de verdade factual. O objetivo desta pesquisa é, então, retomar a reflexão (...) arendtiana sobre a verdade factual a fim de compreendermos nosso próprio contexto, marcado por negacionismo e mesmo por ideias como a de “pós-verdade”. A escolha da autora não é fortuita, mas se justifica pela abordagem na qual a verdade não é tomada como questão epistemológica, neutra. Para tanto, dividimos nosso texto em quatro partes. Na primeira, retomamos aspectos essenciais na relação entre o pensamento arendtiano e a história. Na segunda, a mesma questão é vista a partir da interrogação acerca do modo adequado de responder ao “imperativo do testemunho” sobre a experiência concentracionária. Na terceira, voltamo-nos à figura do contador de estórias e do “pensamento narracional” como alternativa ao ponto de vista arquimediano. Por fim, encontramos a noção de verdade factual que, na verdade, sustenta todos momentos anteriores. (shrink)

A partir da leitura de Hannah Arendt sobre a relação entre lei, poder e Constituição em Sobre a Revolução, este artigo pretende apontar uma afinidade entre a noção arendtiana de direito e a matriz contemporânea do republicanismo. Para tanto, retoma a empreitada da Revolução Americana na transformação do conceito de Constituição e em seguida o malogro das Constituições francesas pós-revolução. Como pano de fundo, se identifica a preocupação de Arendt com a instauração de um corpo de leis capazes de assegurar (...) a permanência de um espaço público livre e plural, ressoando uma característica do republicanismo contemporâneo. (shrink)

This paper examines Hannah Arendt’s account of the relationship between politics and morality. Many critics have argued that Arendt’s conception of political action lacks any moral foundations, while others have tried to focus on her understanding of thinking as a normative source of her ethics. In contrast to these views, I present an alternative explanation and argue that the sources of Arendt’s political ethics are located neither in the faculty of thinking nor in extrapolitical moral norms or rules, but in (...) the ontological conditions of action, specifically worldliness, natality and plurality. This interpretation allows us to make sense of Arendt’s fragmented, unsystematic accounts of the various virtues and moral dispositions required for authentic politics: courage, responsibility, care, respect, moderation, solidarity and gratitude. In particular, an inquiry into the ontological sources of political ethics provides a solid normative grounding for the two moral dispositions—promise and forgiveness—that form an explicit “moral code” of political action for Arendt. (shrink)

This article examines how Hannah Arendt’s idea of a “right to have rights” could travel in the Americas. It offers a reading of the right to have rights that foregrounds the right to land as a basic right. This reading emerges through an attention to contemporary Indigenous social movements and political philosophy. Taken together, this examination and reading ask justice-oriented actors to support land back movements as part of a broader practice of defending human rights and situating those rights within (...) a responsibility to land. (shrink)

Resumo: Este texto se empenha em entender sobre o universo da fabricação de bens duráveis que compõem o mundo. Esse espaço de produção é o grande responsável por produzir produtos para o ser humano, mesmo que isso custe a destruição da natureza. Segundo Hannah Arendt, entretanto, com a modernidade houve uma mudança significativa do processo de fabricar esses artefatos. Isso desencadeou não só uma invasão do consumo, bem como deixou o mundo e seus utensílios ainda mais descartáveis. Portanto, representando uma (...) transformação da essência da técnica e de seu processo de conhecimento, como aponta Martin Heidegger. A conclusão busca desvelar a perda da distinção entre meios e fins ao colocar o ser humano como o protagonista do mundo. A consequência é, como alertava os gregos, a desvalorização da natureza e do agente político, pois é o humano, enquanto consumidor e usuário de produtos, o eleito como referência para o mundo. Palavras-chave: Fabricação; Humano; Mundo; Natureza; Modernidade. The changing manufacturing process and responsibility for the world from Hannah Arendt's perspective Abstract: This text tries to understand the universe of durable goods manufacturing that make up the world. This production space is largely responsible for producing products for human beings, even if it costs the destruction of nature. According to Hannah Arendt, however, with modernity there was a significant change in the process of manufacturing these artifacts. This has brought about not only an invasion of consumption, but has also made the world and its utensils even more throwable. Therefore, representing a transformation of the essence of technique and its knowledge process, as Martin Heidegger points out. The conclusion aims to unveil the loss of the distinction between means and ends by placing the human being as the protagonist of the world. The consequence is, as the Greeks warned, the devaluation of nature and of the political agent, since it is the human being, as consumer and user of products, who is elected as the reference for the world. Key-words: Fabrication; Human; World; Nature; Modernity. Der veränderte Produktionsprozess und die Verantwortung für die Welt aus der Perspektive von Hannah Arendt Zusammenfassend: Dieser Text versucht, das Universum der Herstellung langlebiger Güter zu verstehen, das die Welt ausmacht. Dieser Produktionsraum ist weitgehend für die Herstellung von Produkten für den Menschen verantwortlich, auch wenn dies die Zerstörung der Natur kostet. Nach Hannah Arendt gab es jedoch mit der Moderne eine bedeutende Veränderung im Prozess der Herstellung dieser Artefakte. Dies hat nicht nur zu einer Invasion des Konsums geführt, sondern auch dazu, dass die Welt und ihre Utensilien noch wegwerfbarer geworden sind. Es handelt sich also um eine Transformation des Wesens der Technik und ihres Erkenntnisprozesses, wie Martin Heidegger hervorhebt. Die Schlussfolgerung zielt darauf ab, den Verlust der Unterscheidung zwischen Mitteln und Zwecken aufzuzeigen, indem der Mensch zum Protagonisten der Welt gemacht wird. Die Folge ist, wie die Griechen warnten, die Abwertung der Natur und des politischen Akteurs, da der Mensch als Konsument und Nutzer von Produkten zum Bezugspunkt der Welt gewählt wird. Schlüsselwörter: Fabrikation; Mensch; Welt; Natur; Modernität. Data de registro: 15/03/2022 Data de aceite: 26/10/2022. (shrink)

This article turns to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem in order to illustrate the difficulties involved in approaching the (formerly) metaphysical concept of evil as a secular phenomenon. It asks how the advocate of plurality, natality and forgiveness could also vouch for the death sentence of Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge. It then shows that Arendt's surprisingly consistent view of evil is based on a quasi-ontological understanding of the human condition that allowed her to negate Eichmann's (...) humanity. Rather than simply unmasking a metaphysical account in disguise, however, the article develops an alternative perspective that emerges from the conversation between Arendt and Jaspers. It argues that Jaspers's interpretation of Kant offers a way to defend the idea of secular evil and judge Eichmann on the basis of his thoughtlessness. (shrink)

This article turns to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem in order to illustrate the difficulties involved in approaching the (formerly) metaphysical concept of evil as a secular phenomenon. It asks how the advocate of plurality, natality and forgiveness could also vouch for the death sentence of Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge. It then shows that Arendt's surprisingly consistent view of evil is based on a quasi-ontological understanding of the human condition that allowed her to negate Eichmann's (...) humanity. Rather than simply unmasking a metaphysical account in disguise, however, the article develops an alternative perspective that emerges from the conversation between Arendt and Jaspers. It argues that Jaspers's interpretation of Kant offers a way to defend the idea of secular evil and judge Eichmann on the basis of his thoughtlessness. (shrink)

This article turns to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem in order to illustrate the difficulties involved in approaching the (formerly) metaphysical concept of evil as a secular phenomenon. It asks how the advocate of plurality, natality and forgiveness could also vouch for the death sentence of Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge. It then shows that Arendt's surprisingly consistent view of evil is based on a quasi-ontological understanding of the human condition that allowed her to negate Eichmann's (...) humanity. Rather than simply unmasking a metaphysical account in disguise, however, the article develops an alternative perspective that emerges from the conversation between Arendt and Jaspers. It argues that Jaspers's interpretation of Kant offers a way to defend the idea of secular evil and judge Eichmann on the basis of his thoughtlessness. (shrink)

A soaring intellectual narrative starring the radical, brilliant, and provocative philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand by the critically acclaimed author of Time of the Magicians, Wolfram Eilenberger The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history's greatest philosophers. In particular, four women whose (...) parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century-at once in necessary dialogue and striking contrast with one another. Simone de Beauvoir, already in a deep emotional and intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, was laying the foundations for nothing less than the future of feminism. Born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg before emigrating to the US in 1926, Ayn Rand was honing one of the most politically influential voices of the 20th century. Her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged would reach the hearts and minds millions of Americans in the decades to come, becoming canonical libertarian texts, which continue to echo today among Silicon Valley's tech elite. Hannah Arendt was developing some of today's most important leftwing ideas, culminating with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism and her arrival as a peerless intellectual celebrity. Perhaps the greatest thinker of all was a classmate of de Beauvoir: Simone Weil, who turned away from fame to devote herself entirely to refugee aid and the resistance movement during the war. Ultimately, in 1943, she would starve to death in England, a martyr and true saint in the eyes of many. Few authors can synthesize gripping storytelling with sophisticated philosophy like Wolfram Eilenberger. The Visionaries tells the story of four singular philosophers-indomitable women who were refugees and resistance fighters-each putting forward a vision of a truly free and open society at a time of authoritarianism and war. (shrink)

This paper situates Hannah Arendt’s concept of natality between the rival concerns of Habermasian critical theory and Gadamerian hermeneutical philosophy. I argue that natality is simultaneously emancipatory and hermeneutically grounded. This is to say that Arendt affirms the possibility of reflectively disrupting precedents set by tradition, even as she refrains from overestimating the emancipatory powers of critical reflection. Through comparison with Habermas and Gadamer, it emerges that Arendt conceives of repetition and revolution as jointly constitutive of human natality. At bottom, (...) natality is not simply an innate capacity for newness, but rather refers to the site of an irreducible confrontation between past and future. (shrink)

El artículo propone una resolución a una aporía presente en el pensamiento de Hannah Arendt a propósito de la banalidad del mal y el perdón. La banalidad del mal implica una renuncia del agente a pensar, una despersonalización, de tal modo que no se puede sostener, en rigor, que haya persona: no hay un quién en la acción. El problema es que, para Arendt, el sentido mismo del perdón estriba en que se dirige a la redención de la persona de (...) su pasado. Por tanto, la aporía de la banalidad y del perdón es que no hay a quién perdonar. La condición estructural-fenomenológica que permite el aparecer de la persona es el pedir perdón, en la medida en que solo el pedido da cuenta de la reconstitución de la persona en el pensar y la devuelve al espacio del aparecer que posibilita el emerger del perdón. (shrink)

El objetivo de este ensayo es analizar las reflexiones arendtianas sobre la desobediencia civil. Según Arendt, la desobediencia civil no se puede confundir con la objeción de consciencia. En el contexto específico de la República Americana, es una acción política colectiva que es compatible con el espíritu de las leyes constitucionales, dado que los ciudadanos pueden hacer valer su libertad de disentimiento frente a medidas injustas tomadas por el gobierno de turno. De esta manera, para Arendt, la desobediencia civil promueve (...) la creación de un espacio público para el ejercicio de la libertad ciudadana ante los peligros de despolitización contenidos en agendas gubernamentales que buscan satisfacer los intereses de ciertos partidos políticos y grupos de presión. Desde esta perspectiva, se intenta explicar cómo este tipo de acción reafirma el poder de la ciudadanía y rompe con el conformismo social al inaugurar espacios públicos de participación directa que revitalizan la vida política en el contexto de democracias en crisis. (shrink)