Abstract
After tracing Arendt’s conceptual polarizations and their problematic implications, the essay suggests that, regardless of her standing as a political thinker, Arendt deserves serious notice for her insight into the ills of modernity and for her interpretation of key notions in the history of ideas, such as opinion, knowledge, judgment, and the meaning of action.
Zusammenfassung
Nach Erörterung der Polarisationen im Denken von Hannah Arendt und deren Problematik wird behauptet, daß Arendt, abgesehen von ihrer Bedeutung als politische Denkerin, ernsthaft Beachtung verdient für ihre Einsicht in die Schwächen der Modernität und für ihre Interpretation von Schlüsselbegriffen der Geistesgeschichte, wie Meinung, Wissen, Urteil und Handlungssinn.
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Lieterature
Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago 1958, 204–6 (thereafter HC).
Cf. Arendt, “The Crisis in Culture”, Beetween Past and Future, New York 1968, 219 (thereafter BPF).
Cf. HC (note 1), 173–4; The Life of the Mind, ed. Mary McCarthy, 2 vols., New York 1978, (posthumously published), I, 180.
Cf. The Life of the Mind (note 20), 1,191; see also ch. 18 as a whole. In Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil, New York 1965,126, Arendt describes Adolf Eichmann as a banal man because he never bothered to reflect on what he was doing as an official. He simply carried out orders; he behaved, but he did not act. By the standards of Germany at the time, Eichmann behaved correctly, in the manner of all those ordinary men and women who do what they are told, (a) because it saves them from trouble, and (b) because it cannot but help their professional advancement. Evil is banal, when it occurs in such pedestrian manner. Not too happy with this presentation of evil in Eichmann’s case, I sought further elucidation from Hannah Arendt. She explained “banal” by contrasting it with the memorably great. Banal was simply ordinary — gewoehnlich, combining the meaning of pedestrian with vulgar or base. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Arendt’s biographer, confirms this interpretation of banality in “From the Pariah’s Point of View. Reflections on Hannah Arendt’s Life and Work”, in: Melvyn A. Hill (ed.), Hannah Arendt. The Recovery of the Public World, New York 1979, 3–26, here: 16–17.
See, for example, Martin Jay and Leon Botstein, “Hannah Arendt: Opposing Views”, Partisan Review 45 (1978), 351–53
George Kateb, Hannah Arendt. Politics, Conscience, Evil, Oxford 1984, 28–39; and
Seyla Benhabib, “Judgment and the Moral Foundation of Politics in Arendt’s Political Thought”, Political Theory 16 (1988), 29–52. Conceivably, Arendt was deliberately exaggerating the dichotomy between morals and politics in order to maintain their distinctiveness as well as to underline the autonomy of politics.
Maurizio Passerin D’Entrèves, The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt, London 1994, 91.
Cf. “Truth and Politics”, BPF (note 2), 241–42. See also Ronald Beiner (ed.), Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, Chicago 1982, 42, 70. Recently it has been suggested that it was Karl Jaspers rather than Kant who exerted a dominating influence in this direction. See L.P. and S.K. Hinchman, “Existentialism Politicized”, Review of Politics 53 (1991), 435–68. In view of some of the liberties Arendt has been taking with Kant’s categories, there may be more than a pinch of truth in this.
“Truth and Politics”, BPF (note 2), 235–36; see also Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Cleveland 1958, 474–77.
See, for example, R. Beiner’s “Interpretive Essay”, in: Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (note 48), 138–39; Juergen Habermas, “Hannah Arendt’s Communications Concept of Power”, Social Research 44 (1977), 22–23; and
Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, Philadelphia 1983, 221–22.
See D’Entrèves’s discussion of this point and his approving reference to Albrecht Wellmer’s “Hannah Arendt on Judgment. The Unwritten Doctrine of Reason” (unpublished manuscript, 1985, 2–3) in his The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt (note 33), 130–38.
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Barnard, F.M. Infinity and Finality Hannah Arendt in Retrospect. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 69, 546–569 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375479
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375479