Introduction As is well documented, Hannah Arendt begins exploring the meaning of thinking and contemplative withdrawal after attending the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. After witnessing the trial, Arendt notes that Eichmann possesses an “almost total inability ever to look at anything from the other fellow's point of view.”¹ The meaning of this accusation is fairly self-evident, and it can be taken at face value. Eichmann never once, from all accounts, displayed the ability to put himself in the place of another, imagine the situation from a different perspective, or think critically about the time and place in which he…