Asking, How could they do it? about the many ordinary people who have been perpetrators and those who resist extensive evils – genocide, human trafficking, endemic sexualized violations of females, economic exploitation -- the book delves into historic, contemporary, national, and international examples. The author, a moral philosopher, draws also on literature, psychology, economics, journalism, pop culture. Reversing Arendt’s banality of evil, she finds that mind-deadening banality, thoughtless conventionality, ambition, greed, status-seeking enable the evil of banality.
This is a unique, groundbreaking study in the history of philosophy, combining leading men and women philosophers across 2600 years of Western philosophy, covering key foundational topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Introductory essays, primary source readings, and commentaries comprise each chapter to offer a rich and accessible introduction to and evaluation of these vital philosophical contributions. A helpful appendix canvasses an extraordinary number of women philosophers throughout history for further discovery and study.
Asking, How could they do it? about the many ordinary people who have been perpetrators and those who resist extensive evils – genocide, human trafficking, endemic sexualized violations of females, economic exploitation -- the book delves into historic, contemporary, national, and international examples. The author, a moral philosopher, draws also on literature, psychology, economics, journalism, pop culture. Reversing Arendt’s banality of evil, she finds that mind-deadening banality, thoughtless conventionality, ambition, greed, status-seeking enable the evil of banality.
Minnich and Patton gather an eclectic cohort of thought-leaders to reflect on the importance and intricacies of thinking in their respective fields. Philosophically framed and interdisciplinary in approach, this illuminating book is designed to be supremely useful to readers from all backgrounds.
'Thinking with Hannah Arendt: An Introduction' suggests that those who read Arendt not as a system-building professional philosopher but, rather, as a thinker whose work invites and (by 'unfreezing' concepts) prepares us to think for ourselves about particular realities of our times will read her as she wished to be read. The essays following this introduction are briefly discussed as examples of such independent engagement and, in that, as truer to Arendt's work than readings by those who approach her from (...) their pre-set theoretical and/or critical stances. (shrink)
The banality of evil remains controversial and useful. Ironically, the concept is now itself a banality. To revisit and extend it, we consider the evil of banality, the profound dangers of clichéd thoughtlessness. A distinction is proposed: intensive versus extensive evils. The former takes few people and is readily romanticized as demonic. The latter takes many people over time and is badly misunderstood if romanticized: it requires many reliable workers. The paper introduces the continuum of attentiveness in relation to the (...) doing of evil or good. Education, especially in the Humanities, may be our last best hope to teach people to think, to see, and to resist the evils enabled by banality. (shrink)
