This thesis analyses the fabled public exchange of letters that occurred between political theorist Hannah Arendt and historian of Jewish religion Gershom Scholem in 1964 following the historic trial of Adolf Eichmann and Arendt's subsequent publication of her report of the event, Eichmann in Jerusalem. The thesis covers the historical issues that form the contextual background to the exchange. It involves the introduction of the two participants as defining Jewish intellectuals of the past century, the course of the trial itself and the political and ideological problems it entailed as well as the turbulent history of the reception of Arendt's book. It is down to these four factors that guaranteed the eminence of the exchange of letters analysed in the thesis. Oft-quoted as the exchange is, there has been no proper analysis of it to this date. To accomplish this task, the thesis adopts the theoretical-methodological framework of discourse analysis in general, and the version of rhetorically oriented discursive psychology, proposed mainly in the publications of Potter and Wetherell (1987) and Billig (1996), in particular. This approach allows the thesis to provide a fine-grained analysis of the various ways of textual construction. Firstly, the ways examined concern the significance, worth and value of the debate itself, as formulated by both of the participants. Secondly, they involve the construction of the attempt to establish definite versions of the content of the book. Thirdly, they cover the textual acts of accounting for that content, or the practice of misinterpretation of that content, respectively. What all these three aspects have in common is the positioning of the problems touched upon in a moral and political context, and ultimately approaching them in terms of the identities of the participants. In this sense, versions of the events and ways of accounting for it will not only aim at producing accurate descriptions of events but in the forms of an implied morality or politics an implied "action-plan" for the future as well. The construction of Arendt and Scholem is, hence, analysed in terms of its argumentative organisation in order to undermine the other's counterversion and to establish its own as the definite one. While, structurally, there are many similarities in the two letters, what distinguishes them is that they conceive of their objects (i.e. the text), subject positions, and political or moral values according to which they should be assessed in quite diametrically opposite ways. This thesis not only registers the various rhetorical ways the participants fashion their versions as definite ones, but also accounts for the differences in their contents.

Denna studie undersöker olika användningar av begreppet "de facto statslöshet" och vilka djupare implikationer begreppsanvändningen har. Med avseende på centrala dimensioner av begreppet där olika tolkningar förekommer (vem som är de facto statslös, hur de facto statslöshet tar sig uttryck och vad som orsakar de facto statslöshet) redovisas variationerna i begreppsanvändningen. Slutligen diskuteras vilka följder det får att benämna en grupp "de facto statslös" och vilka lösningar och åtgärder på gruppens utsatthet som därigenom blir aktuell. Detta illustreras med ett konkret fall: asylsökande palestinier från Gaza i Sverige. Det undersöks i vilken mån dessa kan anses de facto statslösa, och hur deras problem uppfattas annorlunda i ljuset av olika tolkingar av begreppet, för att utvärdera de olika begreppsförståelserna. Jag når slutsatsen att det mest fruktbara är ett snävt begrepp, som betecknar ett mer fundamentalt utanförskap än bristen på skydd av olika praktiska rättigheter. Begreppet tappar sin analytiska och politiska udd om det görs för inklusivt, och de politiska implikationerna av att teoretiskt separera en utsatt individ från staten hon tillhör ska inte underskattas.

This paper explores the major historical interpretations of Hannah Arendt and analyzes her philosophy of history. Chapter One includes an introduction and a brief survey of the life of Hannah Arendt. Chapters Two and Three examine The Origins of Totalitarianism. The discussion concludes that Arendt's loose use of terms and some of her evidence can be called into question. Nevertheless, her work contains original insights about modern European political history. Chapter Four, a discussion of Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, emphasizes her portrait of Adolph Eichmann as a shallow, Nazi bureaucrat. Although the work is flawed with inaccuracies, her portrait of Eichmann as a prototypical bureaucratic killer is thought provoking. Chapter Five, an analysis of Arendt's philosophy of history, concludes that Arendt understood the pitfalls of theories of historical causality.

Hannah Arendt est surtout connue pour avoir écrit une magistrale enquête historique sur le totalitarisme (Les origines du totalitarisme) et pour avoir défendu une conception exigeante de la politique développée dans un langage réputé pour être très hellénisant. Cette façon de concevoir la politique repose principalement sur le concept d’action qu’Arendt travaille à redéfinir au sein d’un contexte historique et d’une tradition qui témoignent, selon elle, d’un « oubli de l’action ». Ce qu’Arendt reproche au premier chef à la tradition de la philosophie politique est d’avoir confondu, dès ses premiers balbutiements, le faire et l’agir, interprétant ce dernier à l’aune de la fabrication (poiesis) et recouvrant du même souffle la spécificité de l’action (praxis). Sa propre théorie politique travaille ainsi à repenser l’action pour elle-même et à en faire de nouveau le centre de la vie politique. C’est donc notamment en se référant aux expériences politiques pré-philosophiques athéniennes qu’Arendt parvient à illustrer les potentialités que recèle l’action comprise comme spontanéité dévoilante. Or, il nous apparaît que ses efforts achoppent finalement sur le contexte moderne et que ce fait n’échappe probablement pas à Arendt elle-même. L’impasse suscitée par la modernité est ainsi à nos yeux l’occasion de mettre au jour un versant plus proprement poétique de l’œuvre d’Arendt, se dessinant en filigrane de sa théorie politique et qui n’est que très peu abordé au sein de la littérature secondaire francophone. Pour ce faire, nous proposons dans un premier temps d’interroger les efforts d’Arendt pour valoriser l’action politique afin de faire ressortir les ressources de ce concept. Dans un second temps, nous confrontons le concept d’action au contexte moderne tel que le conçoit Arendt pour montrer qu’il existe dans ses écrits un modèle alternatif de rapport au monde et à autrui que celui mis en avant par l’action et que cet autre modèle doit énormément au poétique. / Hannah Arendt is primarily renowned for writing a masterful historical inquiry on totalitarianism (The Origins of Totalitarianism) and for defending a challenging view of politics expressed in, to say the least, a Hellenistic language. This particular take on politics relies primarily on the concept of action, which Arendt strives to redefine within a historical context and a tradition, which together, bear witness to a “forgetfulness of action”. What Arendt criticizes first and foremost in the tradition of political philosophy is the confusion, from the onset, of making with doing (i.e., acting upon, putting into practice), that is to the understanding of the latter through the standards of production (poiesis) which would have covered up the specific quality of action (praxis). Her political theory therefore seeks to rethink action in itself and to conceive it anew as the core of political life. Therefore it is by drawing upon the political experiences of pre-philosophical Athens that Arendt can illustrate the power of action seen as spontaneous disclosure. It seems however that her efforts ultimately face a limit in the modern context. It also appears to us that she is aware of this fact. This impasse brought about by modernity provides an opportunity to shine a light on the purely poetic dimension of Arendt’s work embedded within her political theory, a topic that seems to have been overlooked by most French language literature on Arendt. In order to do so, we seek in the first instance, to examine Arendt’s attempts at underscoring the value of political action in order to bring to light the essential components of this concept. Secondly, we will reflect on the concept of political action within the modern context as Arendt perceives it, in order discover the existence in her writings of an alternate relationship to the world and to others that can be contrasted with that of action. We will show that this other model draws enormously from the poetic realm.

The concept of compassion has recently held a controversial role in political thought. Critics have tied it with the condescension and latent self-interest of pity, while proponents have asserted it as the ethical posture from which to approach the suffering of others. This thesis looks at the role of compassion in the political sphere, arguing that political compassion involves a decentring of oneself as the primary subject of political action, looking instead to forego one’s own desire and to replace it with the desire of another. It pays particular attention to the thought of Hannah Arendt, who excludes this self-sacrificing compassion from the political sphere, due to the importance of speech to political action, and in turn, the importance of muteness to compassion. To Arendt, political speech intends to performatively bring one’s uniqueness into the world, whereas compassion performatively denies this subjectivity and is fundamentally unpolitical. She asserts that not only do public displays of compassion destroy their very value, but moreover, that a focus of compassion and suffering in the political sphere overshadows the need for cool, sober discourse between equals. I argue that, even in accepting Arendt’s definition of the political, there is space for compassion as a political labour. While Arendt asserts the need for speech and action in the political sphere, she conflates the free will involved in the plurality and uniqueness of the content of speech with the uniform, natural will to speak. Her articulations of the political realm, which require one to make oneself heard among equals, invoke at that same moment an immediate need for the labour of others foregoing their own desire to speak and act, to instead passively listen. Instead of being a realm exclusively to manifest one’s will, the political instead requires a reciprocity of desire, and its abnegation. / Graduate / 0615 / 0422 / 0681 / charlebois@u.northwestern.edu

Whereas educational policy is mainly concerned with the content of Human Rights Education (HRE), philosophers of education have widely explored the subject and her social condition in terms of social justice education. This thesis draws on philosophers of education in exploring the subject rather than the content of HRE, focusing the study on ontological rather than epistemological aspects of learning. In this thesis learning is explored through narratives, as a relational process of becoming. The turn to narrative is taken against the dominant historical narrative of human rights as a Western project. This turn concerns how claims toward universalism of human rights exclude difference and equally concerns how notions of particularity overshadows the uniqueness in life stories. The concept of uniqueness serves to elucidate the complexity of the subject, not easily reduced into social categorizations, a concept drawn from Adriana Cavarero and Hannah Arendt. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: In Press; Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

<p>Hannah Arendt's theory of political judgment has been an ongoing perplexity among scholars who have written on her. As a result, her theory of judgment is often treated as a suggestive but unfinished aspect of her thought. Drawing on a wider array of sources than is commonly utilized, I argue that her theory of political judgment was in fact the heart of her work. Arendt's project, in other words, centered around reestablishing the possibility of political judgment in a modern world that historically has progressively undermined it. In the dissertation, I systematically develop an account of Arendt's fundamentally political and non-sovereign notion of judgment. We discover that individual judgment is not arbitrary, and that even in the complex circumstances of the modern world there are valid structures of judgment which can be developed and dependably relied upon. The result of this work articulates a theory of practical reason which is highly compelling: it provides orientation for human agency which does not rob it of its free and spontaneous character; shows how we can improve and cultivate our political judgment; and points the way toward the profoundly intersubjective form of political philosophy Arendt ultimately hoped to develop.</p> / Dissertation

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joao Francisco Gabriel de Oliveira Filho.pdf: 1126344 bytes, checksum: cef6147591949302bf7b641ab2ec9b6f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-22 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This dissertation investigates proximities and distances of the political analyses made by Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. It is intended to comment the relationships between philosophy and politics in antiquity, discussed by these authors, and, envision effects of these relationships which culminated in the government of the men in the Christian age. After that, it is intended to conjecture how, in the modern context, the biological life became a preoccupation in politics. Thus this work tries to identify their different approaches to power and problematize these approaches in their typical ways of considering politics and the theme of origin / A presente dissertação investiga proximidades e distâncias das análises políticas realizadas por Hannah Arendt e Michel Foucault. Pretende-se comentar as relações entre filosofia e política na Antiguidade, discutidas pelos pensadores, e, a partir das condições de possibilidade daí resultantes, vislumbrar efeitos destas relações que culminaram no governo dos homens na Era cristã. Após, pretende-se conjecturar de que modo, no contexto moderno, deu-se a preocupação com a vida biológica na política. Assim, procura-se identificar suas diferentes abordagens sobre o poder e problematizá-las a partir de seus modos próprios de considerar a política e o tema da origem

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vitor Bartoletti Sartori.pdf: 3042879 bytes, checksum: e7997597aa481ef154ce3bf13f9333b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-18 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The objective of this writing is to make explicit the essential determinations of Arendt´s thought, that cannot be seen only with Lukács, concept of irrationalism, but are inseparable from it. Arendt´s ideology is developed during the Weimar republic and, after de second world war, on the USA and has strong relations with her project regarding the totalitarian elements of Marxism . Can be considered part of this project the books Between Past and Future, The Human Condition and On Revolution. Taking in account Hannah Arendt´s position towards reality, we intend to show the origins of Arendt s thought on her telos opposite to Marxism, socialism and, mainly, to the conscious control of the economy. The concrete position of the author, as a result, we intend to prove, is related at the same time with the German irrationalism and with the liberal-conservative tradition expressed in Toqueville and Burke mainly. So, finally, we analyze how she is next to religious atheism (analyzed by Lukács) when it comes to comprehend the arendtian narrative on the American and on the French Revolution. Both narratives are essential when we take on account that the author is opposed not only to the French revolution, but also to socialism, the Russian Revolution, and humam emancipation / Pretende-se mostrar como Hannah Arendt não pode simplesmente ser enquadrada na filosofia irracionalista tratada por Lukács em A Destruição da Razão, ao mesmo tempo em que é dependente dessa e, em seu tempo, renova a posição irracionalista associando a mesma com uma tônica fortemente politicista. Nisso, temas essenciais à análise imanente da ideologia arendtiana são aqueles da natalidade, da história e da revolução, os quais têm unidade dada, no essencial, em seu projeto intitulado elementos totalitários do marxismo . Este último dá ensejo às obras mais lidas da autora como Entre o Passado e o Futuro, A Condição Humana e Sobre a Revolução. Pretende-se mostrar, assim, como as posições da autora tem sua gênese em um ímpeto contrário ao marxismo, ao socialismo e ao controle consciente das condições de existência do homem. A função concreta desta ideologia, busca-se mostrar, relaciona-se tanto com tradição irracionalista da qual bebe em sua formação filosófica, quanto com conservadorismo liberal de autores como Toqueville. Nisso, Arendt opõe-se, com uma abordagem próxima ao ateísmo religioso analisado por Lukács, não só à Revolução Francesa, mas, sobretudo, à Revolução Russa e às formas de atividade voltadas à construção do socialismo e da emancipação humana

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2016-03-28T17:03:57Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Daniel Silva Barbosa - 2010.pdf: 879082 bytes, checksum: 800259bcd7622263927fedaba1db5363 (MD5) license_rdf: 19874 bytes, checksum: 38cb62ef53e6f513db2fb7e337df6485 (MD5) / Rejected by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com), reason: - Corrigir os títulos, estão digitados em caixa alta : HANNAH ARENDT E O CASO DA POLÍTICA: do diálogo com a tradição à crítica do social HANNAH ARENDT AND THE DECLINE OF THE POLITICS: of the dialogue with the tradition to the critic of the social - Corrigir a vírgula que falta após o sobrenome do autor e o título digitado em caixa alta: BARBOSA Daniel Silva. HANNAH ARENDT E O CASO DA POLÍTICA: do diálogo com a tradição à crítica do social. 2010. 105 f. Dissertação( Mestrado em Filosofia) - Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, 2010. on 2016-04-04T13:30:15Z (GMT) / Rejected by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com), reason: - Corrigir os títulos, estão digitados em caixa alta : HANNAH ARENDT E O CASO DA POLÍTICA: do diálogo com a tradição à crítica do social HANNAH ARENDT AND THE DECLINE OF THE POLITICS: of the dialogue with the tradition to the critic of the social - Corrigir a vírgula que falta após o sobrenome do autor e o título digitado em caixa alta: BARBOSA Daniel Silva. HANNAH ARENDT E O CASO DA POLÍTICA: do diálogo com a tradição à crítica do social. 2010. 105 f. Dissertação( Mestrado em Filosofia) - Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, 2010. on 2016-04-04T13:30:25Z (GMT) / Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2016-04-04T19:04:58Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 19874 bytes, checksum: 38cb62ef53e6f513db2fb7e337df6485 (MD5) Dissertação - Daniel Silva Barbosa - 2010.pdf: 879082 bytes, checksum: 800259bcd7622263927fedaba1db5363 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-04-05T11:01:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 19874 bytes, checksum: 38cb62ef53e6f513db2fb7e337df6485 (MD5) Dissertação - Daniel Silva Barbosa - 2010.pdf: 879082 bytes, checksum: 800259bcd7622263927fedaba1db5363 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-05T11:01:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 19874 bytes, checksum: 38cb62ef53e6f513db2fb7e337df6485 (MD5) Dissertação - Daniel Silva Barbosa - 2010.pdf: 879082 bytes, checksum: 800259bcd7622263927fedaba1db5363 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-31 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This work examines the configuration of the modern society from the perspective of Hannah Arendt’ conceptions of the rise of society (or the social) and analyzes the repercussion and the consequences of that event for the politics. The emergency of society and the social question deflagrated the decadence of politics, and hence transformed it in the strict sphere of administration and government. In view of this, we reconsidered, of the Arendt’s point of view, the conflict among philosophy and politics, of which our tradition of political thought emerged, whose legacy for the Western was a numberless of prejudices in relation to the politics. We reconsidered yet the secondary character of the vita activa, from that traditional point of view. Such elements were important for the evaluation of our current judgments about politics, to which are added other prejudices originating from our more recent and disastrous political experiences, among the ones the most serious are the totalitarian regimes. These elements constitute the first chapter, whose central point are the Arendt’s dialogue and confrontation with tradition, that constitutes to us the condition sine qua non to think the other problems. Soon afterwards, in the second chapter, we judged pertinent to examine the activities of the vita activa and their location, the real domains where occur these activities, considering that the modern age, when promoting the activity of the labor to the highest dignity, turned stiller inoperative the experiences most esteemed in Antiquity: the political activity of the speech and the action. In the third chapter, in the first session, we examined what we named types of human associations, in order to search elements with which we were able to, in the next session, understand the new organization denominated society or what characterizes the social. The basic question was: what is the social? Where it is located? Another aspect analyzed was the social question that, for Arendt, was putted as main motto of the revolutionary movements in France and finally causes the bankrupt of the only modern attempts of establishing the power and the freedom. The reason for the which we ask about what is the social was linked to our hypothesis according to which the more alienated are ourselves in this sphere less we are capable to distinguish what is and which the sense of the politics and of the freedom – and, more important: what is in question when happens the decline of the politics? Finally, in the fourth and last chapter, we discussed – starting from the indication of the decline of politics and of his topos – the public-political domain: the place, or the non place, of the freedom in the current mass societies. / O trabalho trata da configuração da sociedade moderna, à luz do modo como Hannah Arendt concebe o surgimento da sociedade (ou o social), e analisa a repercussão e consequências desse acontecimento para a política. A emergência da sociedade e da questão social acarretaram o apequenamento da política, e esta foi transformada em administração e governo. Para tanto, reconsideraremos, do ponto de vista arendtiano, o conflito entre a filosofia e a política, do qual surgiu nossa tradição de pensamento político, e cujo legado para o Ocidente foi um sem-número de preconceitos em relação à política. Em segundo lugar, reconsideraremos o caráter secundário da vida ativa, desde aquele ponto de vista tradicional. Isso é válido para ajudar na avaliação dos nossos juízos atuais sobre a política, os quais se somam outros preconceitos oriundos das nossas mais recentes e desastrosas experiências políticas, entre as quais, as mais graves, destacam-se os regimes totalitários. Estes elementos compõem o primeiro capítulo cujo cerne é o diálogo e o confronto arendtiando com a tradição, que constitui, de certa forma, a condição de possibilidade para pensarmos os demais problemas. Em seguida, no segundo capítulo, julgou-se pertinente examinar as atividades da vida ativa e sua localização, os domínios nos quais efetivamente estas se realizavam, visto que a era moderna, ao promover a mais alta dignidade à atividade do trabalho, tornou inoperante mais ainda as experiências pelas quais os antigos tinham a maior estima pela atividade política do discurso e da ação. No último capítulo, na primeira sessão, examinaremos o que estamos denominando de tipos de associações humanas, com o fim de perscrutar elementos com os quais possamos, no item seguinte, buscar compreender a nova organização denominada de sociedade ou o que caracteriza o social. O questionamento de fundo é: o que é o social? Onde se localiza? Como último elemento, analisaremos a questão social que, para Arendt, ao ser posta como mote principal dos movimentos revolucionários de vertente francesa acabou por tornar fracassadas as únicas tentativas modernas de instaurar o poder e a liberdade. A razão pela qual nos perguntamos o que é o social liga-se à nossa hipótese segundo a qual quanto mais nos alienamos nesta esfera menos somos capazes de distinguir o que é e qual o sentido da política, a liberdade, e mais importante: o que coloca em jogo o ocaso da política. Por fim, no quarto e último capítulo discutimos, à luz da indicação do ocaso do político e do seu topos¸ o domínio público–político: o lugar, ou o não lugar, da liberdade nas atuais sociedades de massa.