Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Arendt’s genealogy of thinking

  • Published:
Continental Philosophy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper presents what I will call Arendt’s genealogy of thinking. My purpose in doing so is to strengthen Arendt’s critique of thoughtlessness which I believe is both a powerful, but underappreciated analytic tool and a consistent, but under-examined thread that occurs throughout Arendt’s oeuvre. To do so I revisit her phenomenology of thinking and the distinction between thinking and cognition she introduces in her last, unfinished work, The Life of the Mind. When read alongside the genealogy of action in The Human Condition to create a parallel genealogy of thinking, we can begin to see that the implications of this distinction between thinking and cognition are radical, challenging, and deeply important.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Arendt (1976).

  2. Arendt (2000).

  3. Arendt (1978).

  4. Arendt (1998).

  5. Arendt (2006).

  6. Arendt (1998, p. 5).

  7. Pack (2015).

  8. Bernstein (1997).

  9. Often they occur in relation to judgment. Some examples: Mueller (2012), Bernstein (2000, 1986) and D’Entreves (2000).

  10. Benhabib (1995) and Moruzzi (2008).

  11. For a critique that is not framed in terms of thinking, but nonetheless present the kinds of concerns that may prevent employing Arendt’s critique of thinking as an analytic tool, see: Pitkin (1998).

  12. Arendt (1978).

  13. Arendt (1978, pp. 180–190).

  14. Arendt (1978, p. 88).

  15. Arendt (1978, p. 13).

  16. Arendt (1990).

  17. Arendt (1998, p. 30).

  18. Arendt (1998, p. 32).

  19. Arendt (1998, p. 31).

  20. Arendt (1998, p. 194).

  21. Arendt (1998, p. 199).

  22. Quoted in Benhabib (1995, p. 13).

  23. Pounds (1993, p. 59).

  24. Arendt (2007, p. 193).

  25. Ibid.

  26. Arendt (1990, p. 73).

  27. Arendt (1990, p. 74).

  28. Arendt (1990, pp. 107–108).

  29. Arendt (1990, p. 108).

  30. Arendt (1990, p. 109).

  31. Arendt (1990, p. 110).

  32. Arendt (1998, p. 303).

  33. Arendt (1998, p. 304).

  34. Arendt (1998, p. 304).

  35. Arendt (1998, p. 15).

  36. Arendt (1998, p. 314).

  37. While contemplation was the activity of primary importance for the ancient and medieval worlds, it was not limited to the Platonic version. There were other versions, like the Stoic model of contemplation. For the Stoics, contemplation is less a means to have some access to the beautiful cosmos than a method to withdraw from this terribly violent world and exercise a kind of self control: Arendt (1978, p. 54). This is a very different model, one that could nonetheless be mixed with the Platonic model of contemplation by Christians.

  38. Arendt (1998, p. 306).

  39. Arendt (1998, p. 231).

  40. Arendt (1998, p. 295).

  41. Arendt (1998, p. 297).

  42. Arendt (1998, p. 227).

  43. Arendt (1998, p. 38).

  44. Arendt (1998, p. 32).

  45. Arendt (1998, p. 33).

  46. Arendt (1998, p. 40).

  47. Arendt (1998, p. 42).

  48. Pack (2015).

  49. Julian Young has responded to similar criticisms against Heidegger. Young (2001).

References

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1976. The origins of totalitarianism. New York, NY: Harcourt Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1978. The life of the mind. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1990. Philosophy and politics. Social Research 57(1): 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 2000. Rahel Varnhagen: The life of a Jewess. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 2006. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York: Penguin Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 2007. Reflections on literature and culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benhabib, Seyla. 1995. The pariah and her shadow: Hannah Arendt’s biography of Rahel Varnhagen. Political Theory 23(1): 5–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, Richard J. 1997. ’The banality of evil’ reconsidered. In Hannah Arendt and the meaning of politics, ed. Craig Calhoun, and John McGowan. Minneapolis, MS: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, Richard J. 2000. Arendt on thinking. In The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, ed. Dana Villa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, Richard J. 1986. Judging—The actor and the spectator. In Philosophical profiles: Essays in a pragmatic mode. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • D’Entreves, Maurizio Passerin. 2000. Arendt’s theory of judgment. In The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, ed. Dana Villa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moruzzi, Norma. 2008. From Parvenu to Pariah: Hannah Arendt’s Rahel Varnhagen. In Heidegger’s Jewish followers, ed. Samuel Fleischacker. Pittsburg, PA: Duquesne Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, Monica. 2012. Contrary to thoughtlessness: Rethinking practical wisdom. New York: Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pack, Justin. 2015. Academics no longer think: How the neoliberalization of Academia Leads to Thoughtlessness. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon. Department of Philosophy.

  • Pitkin, Hannah Fenichel. 1998. The attack of the blob: Hannah Arendt’s concept of the social. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pounds, Norman. 1993. Hearth and home: A history of material culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, Julian. 2001. Heidegger’s later philosophy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oregon, 4840 S Bitter Root Drive, Taylorsville, UT, 84129, USA

    Justin Pack

Authors
  1. Justin Pack
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Justin Pack.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pack, J. Arendt’s genealogy of thinking. Cont Philos Rev 50, 151–164 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-016-9371-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-016-9371-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation