Although the relevance of evil to politics occupies a large part of the history of political thought few modern political theorists have paid sustained attention to the relationship between the political evils of our times and our understanding of the concept of evil. A major exception to this is Hannah Arendt. For Arendt the evils of totalitarianism, genocide and ‘administrative massacre’ have provided the material for the basic questions to which her thinking has been directed. In the posthumously published The Life of the Mind Arendt appears to depart from her concern with the evils of mass society; the work is outwardly a phenomenological account of some aspects of the history of Western thought. It is, however possible to see this work as a metaphysic for her more overtly political work. Viewed in this way it can also be used to deepen understanding of her concept of the ‘banality of evil’. This notion, which she first introduced in her report of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, became central to her understanding of one part of the Nazi phenomenon.

No abstract

No abstract

Arendt's theoretical influence is generally traced to Heidegger and experientially to the traumatic events that occurred in Europe during the Second World War. Here, we suggest that Arendt's conception of politics may be usefully enriched via a proto-anthropic principle found in Augustine and adopted by Arendt throughout her writings. By appealing to this anthropic principle; that without a spectator there could be no world; a profound connection is made between the 'cosmic jackpot' of life in the universe and the uniquely human activity that takes place in the political realm. By making this connection we suggest that solutions present themselves to a central puzzle arising in Arendt's thought: namely, what it is that people actually do in the political realm. The first solution directly addresses the issue of content: what people talk about in Arendt's public space. The second addresses the importance of 'maintaining' a space of appearances. The third considers the effect of participating in and observing the public domain. Consequently, we conclude that, for Arendt, action is nothing less than the activity of 'world-making.'

No abstract