Holes of Oblivion: The Banality of Radical Evil

Hypatia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peg Birmingham
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
Modem Human

This essay offers a reflection on Arendt's notion of radical evil, arguing that her later understanding of the banality of evil is already at work in her earlier reflections on the nature of radical evil as banal, and furthermore, that Arendt's understanding of the “banality of radical evil” has its source in the very event that offers a possible remedy to it, namely, the event of natality. Kristeva's recent work (2001) on Arendt is important to this proposal insofar as her notion of “abjection” illuminates Arendt's claim that understanding the superfluousness of the modem human being is inseparable from grasping the emergence of radical evil. In the final part of the essay, I argue that Arendt's “politics of natality” emerges from out of these two inseparable moments of the event of natality, offering the only possible remedy to the threat of radical evil by modifying our relationship to temporality.

Decolonization as Existential Paradox

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-121
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Human Being

This article offers a critical analysis of Euromodernity through an engagement with the Africana existentialism of Lewis R. Gordon. Drawing on Gordon’s recent work Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, 2021) as well as Frantz Fanon, the author argues for the need to decolonize modernity by decoupling Europe and reason, freedom, knowledge, and power. Understanding what it means to be a human being involves an ongoing commitment understanding its relationship to the larger structures of reality, including social reality.

scholarly journals Torture: banality of evil or radical evil?

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-250
Author(s):  
Delamar José Volpato Dutra
Keyword(s):  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Legal Definition ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
Full Sense ◽  
Moral Meaning ◽  
Sentient Beings

The text aims to explore legal and moral aspects of torture. Under the legal aspect the text compares three definitions of torture: UN definition, Brazilian definition, and Spanish definition. In this regard, neither the UN formulation nor the Brazilian formulation are ideal, because the Brazilian legal definition restricts the element of action by the part of the perpetrator of torture, and the UN convention restricts the effect on the victim, given that pain or suffering should be severe. The hypothesis is that a better proposal could be linked to the Spanish Penal Code, which in its art. 174 defines torture as the submission of someone “to conditions or procedures that, due to their nature, duration or other circumstances, involve physical or mental suffering, the suppression or decrease of their faculties of knowledge, discernment or decision, or that otherwise undermine their moral integrity”. Concerning the moral meaning of the repulse to torture it is intended to defend the paradigmatic character of the human right to not be tortured in at least two respects. The first aspect refers to its universalizing vocation in the full sense, since it can be extended to all sentient beings. In this regard, the prohibition of torture goes beyond the dominium of personality to advance in the direction of a domain of suffering not determined by the mask of personality. The second aspect is that the prohibition stands for an absolute right with no exceptions, precisely because of its deeper moral content.Keywords:radical evil, torture, perpetrator.

The human reconceived

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Adriana Cavarero
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Ethical Judgment ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
Shared Space

The chapter shows how Socrates becomes the crucial figure that Hannah Arendt turns to, against Plato, for thinking the human as rooted in plurality and attesting to both action and thought. As a positive split image of Plato’s negativity, Socrates is singled out in the context of interrogations that cross Arendt’s entire work about radical evil and, later, about the banality of evil. Socrates works as an antidote to both: radical evil because his practice of dialogue is a political practice that calls on politics as a shared space of plural interaction; and the banality of evil because, by assuming thinking as an activity consisting in the internal questioning of oneself, Socrates discovers conscience as the source of ethical judgment.

Between banality and radicality: Arendt and Kant on evil and responsibility

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Burdman
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Karl Jaspers ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
Canonical Text ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The paper reads Kant’s notion of radical evil as anticipating and clarifying problematic aspects of what Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. By reconstructing Arendt’s varied analyses of this notion throughout her later writings, I show that the main theoretical challenge posed by it concerns the adjudication of responsibility for evil deeds that seem to lack recognisable evil intentions. In order to clarify this issue, I turn to a canonical text in which the relationship between evil and responsibility plays a central role: Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Relying on an interpretation of this writing by Arendt’s mentor Karl Jaspers published in 1935, in evident connection to National Socialism, I challenge Arendt’s own interpretation of Kant’s notion of radical evil, which, I argue, represents an antecedent, rather than a contrast, to ‘the banality of evil’. For Kant, radical evil consists in the destruction of the person’s sense of responsibility, thus producing a self-exculpatory mentality such as the one that characterised Eichmann during his trial.

Samuel, Symbol of Discernment (1 Samuel 3)

2018 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 101-109
Author(s):  
Iulian Faraoanu
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
1 Samuel ◽  
Wide Access

The text 1 Samuel 3 has been oft studied from the perspective of the call. A deeper analysis reveals that an important theme is the discernment. The paper focuses on the theme of discernment and the answer to the divine call. The topic of discernment is a particularly current theme, especially in the context of the wide access to information and globalization. First, the study clarifies some concepts and terms. Who is Samuel? Why is he proposed as a model? What is the meaning of discernment? Secondly, I make an exegetical analysis of the text in 1 Samuel 3, in order to identify some characteristics of vocation: the call, the discernment of the divine will, and the mission. The final part sets out the implications. It will highlight the elements that render Samuel a symbol of discernment, with an emphasis on the theological and spiritual aspects and the application of the same to the existence of today man. As Samuel, the human being needs to listen, to discern and to act.

scholarly journals Interpretácia ako konštituent človeka, komunikácie a porozumenia / Interpretation as a Constituent of Human, Communication and Understanding

2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juraj Dolník
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Fundamental Relation ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
The Real ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThis paper is intended to be an introduction to the elucidation of the mutual understanding on the basis of the concept interpretation. The author raises the question about how is it possible to understand each other in spite of the fact that the mental world is immediately inaccessible. He argues that the possibility of the mutual understanding is an anthropological constant: the human being is set for understanding as a result of the evolutional mature of his interpretational ability. The major part of the text is an attempt at explanation of the role of interpretation in the process of shaping of the subject. It is argued that the germ of the subjectivity is the instinct for self-preservation which determines the fundamental relation of the human to the world: the world is seen through the lens of egocentrism. Showing that the possibility of the mutual understanding of egocentric subjects is a deceptive paradox helps us comprehend the anthropological foundation of this phenomenon. The final part of the text outlines the problem of the mutual understanding in the real interactional conditions and focuses the attention on three fundamental factors: ego, language, egoism

scholarly journals ROLA KRYTYKI W KSZTAŁTOWANIU WIZERUNKU CZŁOWIEKA W INTERAKCJACH MIĘDZYOSOBOWYCH

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Jerzy Kaus
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Interpersonal Interactions

The article aims at analyzing the role of criticism in forming the image of human being in interpersonal interactions. The discussion starts with defining criticism and image. In order to define the concept of criticism, the definition proposed by Mirosław Karwat (2007) is applied. Next, the notion of image is analyzed by means of Stanisław Puppel’s (2016) definition. Finally, the role of criticism in forming the image of human being is scrutinized by means of a survey which was carried out among 20 students studying in Poznań. The results are discussed in the final part of the article.

Three Arguments Against Foundationalism: Arbitrariness, Epistemic Regress, and Existential Support

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Howard-Snyder ◽  
E.J. Coffman
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Basic Belief ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Peter Klein ◽  
Basic Beliefs

A particular belief of a person is basic just in case it is epistemically justified and it owes its justification to something other than her other beliefs or the interrelations of their contents; a person's belief is nonbasic just in case it is epistemically justified but not basic. Traditional Foundationalism says that, first, if a human being has a nonbasic belief, then, at bottom, it owes its justification to at least one basic belief, and second, there are basic beliefs. Call the second thesis Minimal Foundationalism. In this essay, we assess three arguments against Minimal Foundationalism which we find in recent work of Peter Klein and Ernest Sosa.

Are Arendt's Reflections on Evil Still Relevant?

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Radical Evil

AbstractThe relevance of Arendt's reflections on evil is analyzed in three respects. She warns that the appeal to absolutes (good or evil) destroys politics; her claim that radical evil involves making human beings as human beings superfluous is relevant to contemporary concerns with the vast refugee and stateless populations; and her idea of the banality of evil focuses our attention on the evil deeds that persons commit even when they do not have evil motives or intentions.

scholarly journals A human being in meta-anthropology and transhumanism: the sense of human exsistance

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-65
Author(s):  
Natalia Terletska
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Points Of View

From the point of view of metaanthropology, the article analyzes the values of human being: the value of security, power, freedom, love, unity of freedom and love, as well as the value of such existentials as the sense & meaningfullness of human being & exsistance.The value of the sense of human being & exsistance is analized in a research from such points of view as: life not only for the sake of self-preservation and minimization of suffering, but also for the development, holistic harmonious realization by a humanity of such qualities that make a person capable not only for the consumering of the benefits of civilization, but also becoming a creator of culture, seeking the harmony of spiritual, soul and physical needs, the ability to express empathy and to overcome the existential problems of despair and fear of death, remaining a human creator, maintaining traditional human values and existentials, such as love and freedom.The value of the meaning of human life is analyzed in the realm of such existential concepts as free will and human right to have traditional values.The study focuses on the important theme of the loss of meaningful existentials, which, as a rule, is proposed by transhumanism, having a basis for this in the philosophy of the postmodern era, as well as the search for ways out of the existential, spiritual, soul and moral-ethical crisis in order to preserve the human values. The theoretical basis of the study was the work of philosophers of different periods, studies of psychologists and psychoanalysts, including contemporary, recent work of domestic researchers in meta-anthropology, as well as recent work of foreign representatives of transhumanism.There is made a conclusion that the unification of the values of freedom and love in a person’s life is impossible without preserving the traditional existentials of culture, in particular, such as spirituality, empathy, the capacity for compassion and feelings, which make sense of a human existence & being.

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