Arendt

Dana Villa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781138938991
• eBook ISBN: 9780429754326
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a philosopher and political theorist of astonishing range and originality and one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. A former student of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, she fled Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933, and subsequently escaped from Vichy France to New York in 1941. The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) made her famous. After visiting professorships at Princeton, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago, she took up a permanent position at the New School in 1967. Renowned for The Human Condition, On Revolution, and The Life of the Mind, she is also known for her brilliant but controversial reporting and analysis of Adolf Eichmann's 1961 trial in Jerusalem—an experience that led to her to coin the phrase "the banality of evil."

In this outstanding introduction to Arendt's thought Dana Villa begins with a helpful overview of Arendt's life and intellectual development, before examining and assessing the following important topics:

• Arendt's analysis of the nature of political evil and the arguments of The Origins of Totalitarianism
• political freedom and political action and the arguments of On the Human Condition, especially Arendt's return to the ancient Greek polis and her critique of modernity
• modernity and revolution and Arendt's text On Revolution
• responsibility and judgment and her reporting of the Eichmann trial
• Arendt's view of contemplation and the fundamental faculties of mental life
• Arendt's rich legacy and influence, including her civic republican understanding of freedom and her influence on the Frankfurt School, communitarianism, and democratic theory.

Including a chronology, chapter summaries, and suggestions for further reading, this indispensable guide to Arendt's philosophy will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as politics, sociology, history, and economics.

Index

• “abyss of freedom” 294
• “abyss of pure spontaneity” 311, 388
• Accumulation of Capital (Luxemburg) 44
• Achilles 188
• action: disclosive dimension of 187
  • and fabrication 214
  • “frailty” of 194
  • “inherent unpredictability” 182–183
  • initiatory dimension of 192
  • intrusion of 190
  • vs. violence 231
• “actual experiences of the willing ego” 379
• “acute misery” 245
• Adams, John 260, 291
• Adorno, Theodor 19, 312
• Aeneid (Virgil) 311
• Agamben, Giorgio 398
• agent-disclosive capacity 188
  • of political action 187
• agonism, unconstrained 144
• “agonistic” action 262
• agonistic public sphere 144
• agonistic qualityof public realm 143
• Alles-Zermalmer (“all-destroyer”) 366
• American Constitution: “rights of freeborn Englishmen” 234
  • “system of power” 270
• American Declaration of Independence 347
• American democracy 9, 280
• American Jewish community 1, 313
• American political affairs 2
• American political science 273
• American Revolution 122, 124, 125, 139, 225, 226, 239, 254, 260, 266
  • authentic revolutions 236
  • radic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Chronology
• One Life, influences, and central concerns
• Two Totalitarianism and political evil
• Three Marx, labor, and the “rise of the social”
• Four Work, action, and the modern age
• Five Revolution, constitution, authority
• Six Judging
• Seven Thinking and willing
• Eight Legacy
• Index