Hannah Arendt And The Limits Of Total Domination

Author : Michal Aharony
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2015-03-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781134457892

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Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination by Michal Aharony Pdf

Responding to the increasingly influential role of Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy in recent years, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination: The Holocaust, Plurality, and Resistance, critically engages with Arendt’s understanding of totalitarianism. According to Arendt, the main goal of totalitarianism was total domination; namely, the virtual eradication of human legality, morality, individuality, and plurality. This attempt, in her view, was most fully realized in the concentration camps, which served as the major "laboratories" for the regime. While Arendt focused on the perpetrators’ logic and drive, Michal Aharony examines the perspectives and experiences of the victims and their ability to resist such an experiment. The first book-length study to juxtapose Arendt’s concept of total domination with actual testimonies of Holocaust survivors, this book calls for methodological pluralism and the integration of the voices and narratives of the actors in the construction of political concepts and theoretical systems. To achieve this, Aharony engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals and writers who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Additionally, she analyzes the oral testimonies of survivors who are largely unknown, drawing from interviews conducted in Israel and in the U.S., as well as from videotaped interviews from archives around the world. Revealing various manifestations of unarmed resistance in the camps, this study demonstrates the persistence of morality and free agency even under the most extreme and de-humanizing conditions, while cautiously suggesting that absolute domination is never as absolute as it claims or wishes to be. Scholars of political philosophy, political science, history, and Holocaust studies will find this an original and compelling book.

Author : Michal Aharony
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2015-03-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781134457960

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Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination by Michal Aharony Pdf

Responding to the increasingly influential role of Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy in recent years, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination: The Holocaust, Plurality, and Resistance, critically engages with Arendt’s understanding of totalitarianism. According to Arendt, the main goal of totalitarianism was total domination; namely, the virtual eradication of human legality, morality, individuality, and plurality. This attempt, in her view, was most fully realized in the concentration camps, which served as the major "laboratories" for the regime. While Arendt focused on the perpetrators’ logic and drive, Michal Aharony examines the perspectives and experiences of the victims and their ability to resist such an experiment. The first book-length study to juxtapose Arendt’s concept of total domination with actual testimonies of Holocaust survivors, this book calls for methodological pluralism and the integration of the voices and narratives of the actors in the construction of political concepts and theoretical systems. To achieve this, Aharony engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals and writers who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Additionally, she analyzes the oral testimonies of survivors who are largely unknown, drawing from interviews conducted in Israel and in the U.S., as well as from videotaped interviews from archives around the world. Revealing various manifestations of unarmed resistance in the camps, this study demonstrates the persistence of morality and free agency even under the most extreme and de-humanizing conditions, while cautiously suggesting that absolute domination is never as absolute as it claims or wishes to be. Scholars of political philosophy, political science, history, and Holocaust studies will find this an original and compelling book.

Author : Lisa Jane Disch
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : UOM:39015032291760

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Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy by Lisa Jane Disch Pdf

In this new interpretation of the political writings of Hannah Arendt, Lisa Jane Disch focuses on an issue that remains central to today's debates in political philosophy and feminist theory: the relationship of experience to critical understanding. Discussing a range of Arendt's work including unpublished writings, Disch explores the function of storytelling as a form of critical theory beyond the limits of philosophy.

Author : Dana Villa
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1999-08-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781400823161

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Politics, Philosophy, Terror by Dana Villa Pdf

Hannah Arendt's rich and varied political thought is more influential today than ever before, due in part to the collapse of communism and the need for ideas that move beyond the old ideologies of the Cold War. As Dana Villa shows, however, Arendt's thought is often poorly understood, both because of its complexity and because her fame has made it easy for critics to write about what she is reputed to have said rather than what she actually wrote. Villa sets out to change that here, explaining clearly, carefully, and forcefully Arendt's major contributions to our understanding of politics, modernity, and the nature of political evil in our century. Villa begins by focusing on some of the most controversial aspects of Arendt's political thought. He shows that Arendt's famous idea of the banality of evil--inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann--does not, as some have maintained, lessen the guilt of war criminals by suggesting that they are mere cogs in a bureaucratic machine. He examines what she meant when she wrote that terror was the essence of totalitarianism, explaining that she believed Nazi and Soviet terror served above all to reinforce the totalitarian idea that humans are expendable units, subordinate to the all-determining laws of Nature or History. Villa clarifies the personal and philosophical relationship between Arendt and Heidegger, showing how her work drew on his thought while providing a firm repudiation of Heidegger's political idiocy under the Nazis. Less controversially, but as importantly, Villa also engages with Arendt's ideas about the relationship between political thought and political action. He explores her views about the roles of theatricality, philosophical reflection, and public-spiritedness in political life. And he explores what relationship, if any, Arendt saw between totalitarianism and the "great tradition" of Western political thought. Throughout, Villa shows how Arendt's ideas illuminate contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and democracy and how they deepen our understanding of philosophers ranging from Socrates and Plato to Habermas and Leo Strauss. Direct, lucid, and powerfully argued, this is a much-needed analysis of the central ideas of one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

Author : Anthony Court
Publisher : Rozenberg Publishers
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Totalitarianism
ISBN : 9789036101004

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Hannah Arendt's Response to the Crisis of Her Times by Anthony Court Pdf

Author : Everest Media
Publisher : Everest Media LLC
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2022-03-05T22:59:00Z
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781669350583

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Summary of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism by Everest Media Pdf

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Nothing is more characteristic of the totalitarian movements in general and of the fame of their leaders in particular than the startling swiftness with which they are forgotten and the ease with which they can be replaced. #2 It is a serious mistake to forget that the totalitarian regimes, while they are in power, command and rest upon mass support. This support is not simply a result of self-interest, which is the most powerful psychological factor in politics. #3 The attraction of evil and crime for the mob mentality is nothing new. It has always been true that the mob will admire deeds of violence for their cleverness. The disturbing fact about totalitarianism is the true selflessness of its adherents: they will not waver even if their own children are being harmed. #4 The totalitarian movements aim at and succeed in organizing masses, not classes. While all political groups depend on proportionate strength, the totalitarian movements depend on the sheer force of numbers to such an extent that they seem impossible, even under otherwise favorable circumstances, in countries with relatively small populations.

Author : Kei Hiruta
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2023-11-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691226125

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Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin by Kei Hiruta Pdf

For the first time, the full story of the conflict between two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers—and the lessons their disagreements continue to offer Two of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping lives and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, Berlin disliked Arendt intensely, saying that she represented “everything that I detest most,” while Arendt met Berlin’s hostility with indifference and suspicion. Written in a lively style, and filled with drama, tragedy and passion, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin tells, for the first time, the full story of the fraught relationship between these towering figures, and shows how their profoundly different views continue to offer important lessons for political thought today. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, Kei Hiruta traces the Arendt–Berlin conflict, from their first meeting in wartime New York through their widening intellectual chasm during the 1950s, the controversy over Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, their final missed opportunity to engage with each other at a 1967 conference and Berlin’s continuing animosity toward Arendt after her death. Hiruta blends political philosophy and intellectual history to examine key issues that simultaneously connected and divided Arendt and Berlin, including the nature of totalitarianism, evil and the Holocaust, human agency and moral responsibility, Zionism, American democracy, British imperialism and the Hungarian Revolution. But, most of all, Arendt and Berlin disagreed over a question that goes to the heart of the human condition: what does it mean to be free?

Author : Richard J. Bernstein
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2013-05-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780745665702

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Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question by Richard J. Bernstein Pdf

Hannah Arendt is increasingly recognised as one of the most original social and political thinkers of the twentieth century. In this important book, Richard Bernstein sets out to show that many of the most significant themes in Arendt's thinking have their origins in their confrontation with the Jewish Question. By approaching her mature work from this perspective, we can gain a richer and more subtle grasp of her main ideas. Bernstein discusses some of the key experiences and events in Arendt's life story in order to show how they shaped her thinking. He examines her distinction between the Jewish parvenu and the pariah, and shows how the conscious pariah becomes a basis for understanding the independent thinker. Arendt's deepest insights about politics emerged from her reflections on statelessness, which were based on her own experiences as a stateless person. By confronting the horrors of totalitarianism and the concentration camps, Arendt developed her own distinctive understanding of authentic politics - the politics required to express our humanity and which totalitarianism sought to destroy. Finally, Bernstein takes up Arendt's concern with the phenomenon of the banality of evil. He follows her use of Eichmann in order to explore how the failure to think and to judge is the key for grasping this new phenomenon. Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question offers a new interpretation of Arendt and her work - one which situates her in her historical context as an engaged Jewish intellectual.

Author : Hannah Arendt
Publisher : HMH
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 1968-03-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780547545929

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Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt Pdf

The great twentieth-century political philosopher examines how Hitler and Stalin gained and maintained power, and the nature of totalitarian states. In the final volume of her classic work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt focuses on the two genuine forms of the totalitarian state in modern history: the dictatorships of Bolshevism after 1930 and of National Socialism after 1938. Identifying terror as the very essence of this form of government, she discusses the transformation of classes into masses and the use of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world—and in her brilliant concluding chapter, she analyzes the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination. “The most original and profound—therefore the most valuable—political theoretician of our times.” —Dwight Macdonald, The New Leader

Author : Hannah Arendt
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 650 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2017-04-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780241316764

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The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt Pdf

'How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times' Washington Post Hannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes is a warning from history about the fragility of freedom, exploring how propaganda, scapegoats, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. 'A non-fiction bookend to Nineteen Eighty-Four' The New York Times 'The political theorist who wrote about the Nazis and the 'banality of evil' has become a surprise bestseller' Guardian

Author : Richard J. Bernstein
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2018-06-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781509528639

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Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? by Richard J. Bernstein Pdf

Recently there has been an extraordinary international revival of interest in Hannah Arendt. She was extremely perceptive about the dark tendencies in contemporary life that continue to plague us. She developed a concept of politics and public freedom that serves as a critical standard for judging what is wrong with politics today. Richard J. Bernstein argues that Arendt should be read today because her penetrating insights help us to think about both the darkness of our times and the sources of illumination. He explores her thinking about statelessness and refugees; the right to have rights; her critique of Zionism; the meaning of the banality of evil; the complex relations between truth, lying, power, and violence; the tradition of the revolutionary spirit; and the urgent need for each of us to assume responsibility for our political lives. This short and very readable book will be of great interest to anyone who wants to understand the forces that are shaping our world today.

Author : Marco Goldoni,Chris McCorkindale
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-20
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781847319319

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Hannah Arendt and the Law by Marco Goldoni,Chris McCorkindale Pdf

This book fills a major gap in the ever-increasing secondary literature on Hannah Arendt's political thought by providing a dedicated and coherent treatment of the many, various and interesting things which Arendt had to say about law. Often obscured by more pressing or more controversial aspects of her work, Arendt nonetheless had interesting insights into Greek and Roman concepts of law, human rights, constitutional design, legislation, sovereignty, international tribunals, judicial review and much more. This book retrieves these aspects of her legal philosophy for the attention of both Arendt scholars and lawyers alike. The book brings together lawyers as well as Arendt scholars drawn from a range of disciplines (philosophy, political science, international relations), who have engaged in an internal debate the dynamism of which is captured in print. Following the editors' introduction, the book is split into four Parts: Part I explores the concept of law in Arendt's thought; Part II explores legal aspects of Arendt's constitutional thought: first locating Arendt in the wider tradition of republican constitutionalism, before turning attention to the role of courts and the role of parliament in her constitutional design. In Part III Arendt's thought on international law is explored from a variety of perspectives, covering international institutions and international criminal law, as well as the theoretical foundations of international law. Part IV debates the foundations, content and meaning of Arendt's famous and influential claim that the 'right to have rights' is the one true human right.

Author : Rosalyn Diprose
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2018-09-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781474444361

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Arendt, Natality and Biopolitics by Rosalyn Diprose Pdf

A literary, historical and philosophical discussion of attitudes to blindness by the sighted, and what the blind 'see'

Author : Michael G. Gottsegen
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1993-12-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781438404530

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The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt by Michael G. Gottsegen Pdf

By turns radical and conservative, Hannah Arendt's work confounds the usual categories and defies conventional expectations. This book provides a comprehensive analytical and developmental study of the whole of Arendt's mature political philosophy, focusing especially on the development of her works—The Human Condition, Between Past and Future, On Revolution, the Life of the Mind, and Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy—and explores her contributions to democratic theory and to contemporary postmodern and neo-Kantian political philosophy. Gottsegen argues that Arendt was primarily a theorist of political action, and that, at the heart of her thought, a new conception of political action emerges. And he shows how, to that end, Arendt endeavored to articulate in her major works a new conception of political action and participatory democracy that, together, might make politics a medium of human dignity, self-realization, and transcendence.

Author : Hannah Arendt,Jerome Kohn
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2006-09-26
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781101662656

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Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt,Jerome Kohn Pdf

From the author of Eichmann in Jerusalem and The Origins of Totalitarianism, “a book to think with through the political impasses and cultural confusions of our day” (Harper’s Magazine) Hannah Arendt’s insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future. To participate in these exercises is to associate, in action, with one of the most original and fruitful minds of the twentieth century.