Kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography
Last but not least, we will touch upon a tension between Arendt's dubious and Butler's overt feminism. The final point of our classes will be the question about the future politics and a possibility of the politics of life. Participation in classes is compulsory. Student may choose between two assessment methods: final essay or final oral exam.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. August 27, Butler J. Krasuska, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, Warszawa. Abstract in English. No affiliation. Miklaszewska, Justyna.
Kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography: Hannah Arendt, „Kondycja ludzka”, przekł.
Views 9. Views per month. Views per city Warsaw. If one builds an artifact and is not satisfied with it, it can always be destroyed and recreated again. This is impossible where action is concerned, because action always takes place within an already existing web of human relationships, where every action becomes a reaction, every deed a source of future deeds, and none of these can be stopped or subsequently undone.
The consequences of each act are thus not only unpredictable but also irreversible; the processes started by action can neither be controlled nor be reversed. Platonism, Stoicism and Christianity elevated the sphere of contemplation above the sphere of action, precisely because in the former one could be free from the entanglements and frustrations of action.
These two faculties are closely connected, the former mitigating the irreversibility of action by absolving the actor from the unintended consequences of his or her deeds, the latter moderating the uncertainty of its outcome by binding actors to certain courses of action and thereby setting some limit to the unpredictability of the future. Both faculties are, in this respect, connected to temporality: from the standpoint of the present forgiving looks backward to what has happened and absolves the actor from what was unintentionally done, while promising looks forward as it seeks to establish islands of security in an otherwise uncertain and unpredictable future.
Kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography: Kondycja ludzka by Hannah
Forgiving enables us to come to terms with the past and liberates us to some extent from the burden of irreversibility; promising allows us to face the future and to set some bounds to its unpredictability HC, For Arendt the public sphere comprises two distinct but interrelated dimensions. The first is the space of appearancea space of political freedom and equality which comes into being whenever citizens act in concert through the medium of speech and persuasion.
The second is the common worlda shared and public world of human artifacts, institutions and settings which separates us from nature and which provides a relatively permanent and durable context for our activities. Both dimensions are essential to the practice of citizenship, the former providing the spaces where it can flourish, the latter providing the stable background from which public spaces of action and deliberation can arise.
For Arendt the reactivation of citizenship in the modern world depends upon both the recovery of a common, shared world and the creation of numerous spaces of appearance in which individuals can disclose their identities and establish relations of reciprocity and solidarity. These are, first, its artificial or constructed quality; second, its spatial quality; and, third, the distinction between public and private interests.
Kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography: Kondycja ludzka. Hannah Arendt with Anna
As regards the first feature, Arendt always stressed the artificiality of public life and of political activities in general, the fact that they are man-made and constructed rather than natural or given. She regarded this artificiality as something to be celebrated rather than deplored. Politics for her was not the result of some natural predisposition, or the realization of the inherent traits of human nature.
Rather, it was a cultural achievement of the first order, enabling individuals to transcend the necessities of life and to fashion a world within which free political action and discourse could flourish. The stress on the artificiality of politics has a number of important consequences. For example, Arendt emphasized that the principle of political equality does not rest on a theory of natural rights or on some natural condition that precedes the constitution of the political realm.
Rather, it is an attribute of citizenship which individuals acquire upon entering the public realm and which can be secured only by democratic political institutions. For Arendt political participation was important because it permitted the establishment of relations of civility and solidarity among citizens. She claimed that the ties of intimacy and warmth can never become political since they represent psychological substitutes for the loss of the common world.
The only truly political ties are those of civic friendship and solidarity, since they make political demands and preserve reference to the world. For Arendt, therefore, the danger of trying to recapture the sense of intimacy and warmth, of authenticity and communal feelings is that one loses the public values of impartiality, civic friendship, and solidarity.
The second feature stressed by Arendt has to do with the spatial quality of public life, with the fact that political activities are located in a public space where citizens are able to meet one another, exchange their opinions and debate their differences, and search for some collective solution to their problems. Politics, for Arendt, is a matter of people sharing a common world and a common space of appearance so that public concerns can emerge and be articulated from different perspectives.
In her view, it is not enough to have a collection of private individuals voting separately and anonymously according to their private opinions. Rather, these individuals must be able to see and talk to one another in public, to kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography in a public-political space, so that their differences as well as their commonalities can emerge and become the subject of democratic debate.
This notion of a common public space helps us to understand how political opinions can be formed which are neither reducible to private, idiosyncratic preferences, on the one hand, nor to a unanimous collective opinion, on the other. In her view representative opinions could arise only when citizens actually confronted one another in a public space, so that they could examine an issue from a number of different perspectives, modify their views, and enlarge their standpoint to incorporate that of others.
Political opinions, she claimed, can never be formed in private; rather, they are formed, tested, and enlarged only within a public context of argumentation and debate. For Arendt the unity that may be achieved in a political community is neither the result of religious or ethnic affinity, not the expression of some common value system. Rather, the unity in question can be attained by sharing a public space and a set of political institutions, and engaging in the practices and activities which are characteristic of that space and those institutions.
This public or world-centered conception of politics lies also at the basis of the third feature stressed by Arendt, the distinction between public and private interests. She argues that our public interest as citizens is quite distinct from our private interest as individuals. The public interest is not the sum of private interests, nor their highest common denominator, nor even the total of enlightened self-interests.
In fact, it has little to do with our private interests, since it concerns the world that lies beyond the self, that was there before our birth and that will be there after our death, a world that finds embodiment in activities and institutions with their own intrinsic purposes which might often be at odds with our short-term and private interests.
The public interest refers, therefore, to the interests of a public world which we share as citizens and which we can pursue and enjoy only by going beyond our private self-interest. Political action and discourse are, in this respect, essential to the constitution of collective identities. This process of identity-construction, however, is never given once and for all and is never unproblematic.
Rather, it is a process of constant renegotiation and struggle, a process in which actors articulate and defend competing conceptions of cultural and political identity. Once citizenship is viewed as the process of active deliberation about competing identities, its value resides in the possibility of establishing forms of collective identity that can be acknowledged, tested, and transformed in a discursive and democratic fashion.
With respect to the second claim, concerning the question of political agency, it is important to stress the connection that Arendt establishes between political action, understood as the active engagement of citizens in the public realm, and the exercise of effective political agency. She saw representation as a substitute for the direct involvement of the citizens, and as a means whereby the distinction between rulers and ruled could reassert itself.
As an alternative to a system of representation based on bureaucratic parties and state structures, Arendt proposed a federated system of councils through which kondycja ludzka hannahs arendt biography could effectively determine their own political affairs. For Arendt, it is only by means of direct political participation, that is, by engaging in common action and collective deliberation, that citizenship can be reaffirmed and political agency effectively exercised.
Due to her sudden death, Arendt was unable to complete this late work. In the introduction to The Life of the MindArendt explains that it was the Eichmann trial that sparked her interest in the phenomenon of thinking LM, 6. I, 4—5. Thereafter we will show why thinking and judging is morally relevant 2and why, according to Arendt, self-awareness is linked to autonomy 3.
Lastly, we will discuss the role of opinion and truth in politics 5. Radical evil consists in the destruction of human plurality and spontaneity, and in rendering human beings superfluous OT, As mentioned in section 3, this type of evil cannot be grasped with traditional explanations such as selfish motives OT,and is therefore unpunishable and unforgivable OT, He made logistically possible the murder of six million Jews, and was therefore directly responsible for it.
After Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina, where he was hiding, he was brought to trial in Israel inand found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people. InEichmann was hanged. Arendt reported on the trial, which she attended in part, in articles for The New Yorker and published the text subsequently as Eichmann in Jerusalem.
A Report on the Banality of Evilher most controversial book Benhabib It was not only the tone of book, its use of irony and sarcasm, that alienated many readers, but also her claim that some members of the Jewish Councils were collaborators in that they provided the Nazis with lists of their Jewish fellow citizens who were then deported to the extermination camps in the East EJ, 11, 91, — Although the expression appears only once more in the book Ej,it contributed significantly to the fierce controversy that erupted immediately after its publication: EJ has been gravely misinterpreted as a trivialization of the Nazi crimes or even as a defense of Eichmann cf.
Benhabib Many critics accused Arendt of having mistaken the true, fanatically anti-Semitic Eichmann for a mere bureaucrat CeseraniLipstadtStangneth Arendt, however, never wrote that Eichmann simply followed orders, as he tried to claim. Arendt believed him to be fully responsibility for his deeds and supported the death sentence. According to her own statements, Arendt proposed herself to report on the trial because she absolutely wanted to know how someone looked like who had done radical evil cf.
It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. In reaction to the controversy, Arendt tried to explain the phenomenon she had perceived. Arendt attempted a reply by connecting the activity of thinking to that of judging in a twofold manner. First, thinking — the silent dialogue of me and myself — dissolves our fixed habits of thought and the accepted rules of conduct, and thus prepares the way for the activity of judging particulars without the aid of pre-established universals.
It is not that thinking provides judgment with new rules for subsuming the particular under the universal. Rather, it loosens the grip of the universal over the particular, thereby releasing judgment from ossified categories of thought and conventional standards of assessment. It is in times of historical crisis that thinking ceases to be a marginal affair, because by undermining all established criteria and values, it prepares the individual to judge for him or herself instead of being carried away by the actions and opinions of the majority.
Kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography: Kondycja ludzka. Świadek epoki,
The second way in which Arendt connected the activity of thinking with that of judging is by showing that thinking, by actualizing the dialogue of me and myself, which is given in consciousness, produces conscience as a by-product. In various essays from the s and 70ies, Arendt explored the role of the mental faculties for the conflict between moral autonomy and social pressure.
Therefore, morality is not a question of our relationship to others, but a question of our relationship to ourselves. EU, The morally responsible self does not have to make authentic, but universalizable, representative decisions. Only those who actualize this difference in their identity allow conscience to emerge as a by-product of consciousness RJ, When Arendt describes the public sphere as a condition of judgment DT,she does not necessarily mean the actual presence of other people, but this inner plurality.
Listening to such an inner representation of other people can help to withstand the pressure of public opinion. The foregoing account has underlined the moral significance of thinking and judgment. For Arendt, however, the capacity to judge is no less a political ability insofar as it enables individuals to orient themselves in the public realm and to judge the phenomena that are disclosed within it from a standpoint that is relatively detached and impartial.
Together with the theory of action, her unfinished theory of judgment represents her central legacy to twentieth century political thought. She intended to complete her study of the life of the mind by devoting the third volume to the faculty of judgment, but was not able to do so because of her untimely death in However, these writings do not present a unified theory of judgment but rather two distinct models, one based on the standpoint of the actor, the other on the standpoint of the spectator, which are somewhat at odds with each other.
In this later formulation Arendt is no longer concerned with judging as a feature of political life as such, as the faculty which is exercised by actors in order to decide how to act in the public realm, but with judgment as a component in the life of the mind, the faculty through which the privileged spectators can recover meaning from the past and thereby reconcile themselves to time and, retrospectively, to tragedy.
In contrast to speculative thought, judging has its roots in common sense. BPF, — For Arendt it is the spectators who have the privilege of judging impartially and disinterestedly, and in doing so they exercise two crucial faculties, imagination and sensus communis. Through the imagination one can represent objects that are no longer present and thus establish the distance necessary for an impartial judgment.
Once this distancing has occurred, one is in a position to reflect upon these representations from a number of different perspectives, and thereby to reach a judgment about the proper value of an object. Kant believed that for our judgments to be valid we must transcend our private or subjective conditions in favor of public and intersubjective ones, and we are able to do this by appealing to our community sense, our sensus communis.
The criterion for judgment, then, is communicabilityand the standard for deciding whether our judgments are indeed communicable is to see whether they could fit with the sensus communis of others. Against Plato and Hobbes, who denigrated the role of opinion in political matters, Arendt reasserts the value and importance of political discourse, of deliberation and persuasion, and thus of a politics that acknowledges difference and the plurality of opinions.
She shunned publicity, never expecting, as she explained to Karl Jaspers into see herself as a "cover girl" on the newsstands. The study of the life and work of Hannah Arendt, and of her political and philosophical theory is described as Arendtian. In Oldenburgthe Hannah Arendt Center at Carl von Ossietzky University was established in[ ] and holds a large collection of her work Hannah Arendt Archiv[ ] and administers the internet portal HannahArendt.
In a journal, Arendt Studieswas launched to publish articles related to the study of the life, work, and legacy of Hannah Arendt. Of the many photographic portraits of Arendt, that taken in by Fred Stein see imagewhose work she greatly admired, [ ba ] has become iconic, and has been described as better known than the photographer himself, [ ] having appeared on a German postage stamp.
The rise of nativismsuch as the election of Donald Trump in the United States, [ ] [ ] [ ] and concerns regarding an increasingly authoritarian style of governance has led to a surge of interest in Arendt and her writings, [ ] including radio broadcasts [ ] and writers, including Jeremy Adelman [ ] and Zoe Williams, [ ] to revisit Arendt's ideas to seek the extent to which they inform our understanding of such movements, [ ] [ ] which are being described as "Dark Times".
She begins her book with an extensive quote from The Origins of Totalitarianism : [ ]. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction i. Kakutani and others believed that Arendt's words speak not just events of a previous century but apply equally to the contemporary cultural landscape [ ] populated with fake news and lies.
She also draws on Arendt's essay "Lying in Politics" from Crises in the Republic [ ] pointing to the lines:. The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion.
Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs [ ]. Arendt drew attention to the critical role that propaganda plays in gaslighting populations, Kakutani observes, citing the passage: [ ] [ ]. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.
The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness [ ].
Arendt took a broader perspective on history than merely totalitarianism in the early 20th century, stating "the deliberate falsehood and the outright lie have been used as legitimate means to achieve political ends since the beginning of recorded history. Arendt's teachings on obedience have also been linked to the controversial psychology experiments by Stanley Milgramthat implied that ordinary people can easily be induced to commit atrocities.
Arendt's theories on the political consequences of how nations deal with refugees have remained relevant and compelling. Arendt had observed first hand the displacement of large stateless and rightsless populations, treated not so much as people in need than as problems to solve, and in many cases, resist. An example of this being gun violence in America and the resulting political inaction.
In Search of the Last Agoraan illustrated documentary film by Lebanese director Rayyan Dabbous about Hannah Arendt's work The Human Conditionwas released in to mark the book's 50th anniversary. Screened at Bard College, the experimental film is described as finding "new meaning in the political theorist's conceptions of politics, technology and society in the s", particularly in her kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography of abuses of phenomena unknown in Arendt's time, including social media, intense globalization, and obsessive celebrity culture.
Hannah Arendt's life and work continue to be commemorated in many different ways, including plaques Gedenktafeln indicating places she has lived. Public places and institutions bear her name, [ ] including schools. Museums and foundations include her name. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.
In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. German American historian and philosopher — For other people with the surname, see Arendt surname. For the film, see Hannah Arendt film. Prussia — Stateless — United States from Max Arendt [ de ] grandfather Henriette Arendt aunt. Anti-monarchism Anti-corruption Civic virtue Civil society Consent of the governed Democracy Democratization Liberty as non-domination Mixed government Political representation Popular sovereignty Public participation Republic Res publica Rule of law Self-governance Separation of powers Social contract Social equality.
Theoretical works. Republic c. National variants. Related topics. Early life and education — [ edit ]. Family [ edit ]. Paul Arendt c. Martha Cohn c. The Arendt Family. Beerwald-Arendt Family. Education [ edit ]. Early education [ edit ]. Hufen-Oberlyzeum c. Early homes. Hannah Arendt's birthplace in Linden. Higher education — [ edit ]. Almae matres.
Berlin University. Marburg University. Freiburg University. Heidelberg University. Berlin — [ edit ]. Marburg — [ edit ]. Die Schatten [ edit ]. Martin Heidegger. Freiburg and Heidelberg — [ edit ]. Arendt at Heidelberg — Career [ edit ]. Germany — [ edit ]. Berlin-Potsdam [ edit ]. Wanderjahre — [ edit ]. Return to Berlin — [ edit ]. Exile: France — [ edit ].
Paris — [ edit ]. Internment and escape — [ edit ]. New York — [ edit ]. World War II — [ edit ]. Post-war — [ edit ]. Teaching [ edit ]. Relationships [ edit ]. Final illness and death [ edit ]. Work [ edit ]. Political theory and philosophical system [ edit ]. Love and Saint Augustine [ edit ]. Main article: Love and Saint Augustine. Amor mundi.
The Origins of Totalitarianism [ kondycja ludzka hannah arendt biography ]. Main article: The Origins of Totalitarianism. Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess [ edit ]. The Human Condition [ edit ]. Main article: The Human Condition Arendt book. Between Past and Future Main article: Between Past and Future. On Revolution [ edit ].
Main article: On Revolution. Men in Dark Times [ edit ]. Crises of the Republic [ edit ]. Main article: Crises of the Republic. The Life of the Mind [ edit ]. Main article: The Life of the Mind. Collected works [ edit ]. Poetry [ edit ]. Correspondence [ edit ]. Arendt and the Eichmann trial — [ edit ]. Main article: Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Reception [ edit ]. Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen [ edit ]. Tax offices in Bolzano, former seat of the Fascist party. By Day and Night. Italian Fascist monument reworked to display a version of Arendt's statement "No one has the right to obey. List of selected publications [ edit ]. Main article: List of works by Hannah Arendt. Bibliographies [ edit ].
Books [ edit ]. Articles and essays [ edit ]. Posthumous [ edit ]. Collections [ edit ]. Miscellaneous [ edit ]. Views [ edit ]. Accusations of racism [ edit ]. Feminism [ edit ]. Critique of human rights [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ]. Continuing interest [ edit ]. Commemorations [ edit ]. Main article: List of memorials to Hannah Arendt.
See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Anne left Germany for Paris at the same time as Arendt, married the philosopher Eric Weil inand worked for the French Resistance under the alias Dubois. Wenn die dann abgewirtschaftet haben, werden wir Sie habilitieren".