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From Radical to Banal Evil: Hannah Arendt against the Justification of the Unjustifiable
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-16, 16:37 authored by Phillips, JATwo central strands in Arendt's thought are the reflection on the evil of Auschwitz and the rethinking in terms of politics of Heidegger's critique of metaphysics. Given Heidegger's taciturnity regarding Auschwitz and Arendt's own taciturnity regarding the philosophical implications of Heidegger's political engagement in 1933, to set out how these strands interrelate is to examine the coherence of Arendt's thought and its potential for a critique of Heidegger. By refusing to countenance a theological conception of the evil of Auschwitz, Arendt consolidates the break with theology that Heidegger attempts through his analysis of the essential finitude of Dasein. In the light of Arendt's account of evil, it is possible to see the theological vestiges in Heidegger's ontology. Heidegger's resumption of the question concerning the categorical interconnections of the ways of Being entails an abandonment of finitude: he accommodates and tacitly justifies that which can have no human justification.
History
Publication title
The International Journal of Philosophical StudiesVolume
12Pagination
129-158ISSN
0967-2559Department/School
School of HumanitiesPublisher
RoutledgePlace of publication
United KingdomRepository Status
- Restricted