Hannah Arendt argues that political action is only meaningful through the disclosure of who the actor uniquely is, and that this disclosure is the basis of human dignity. Arendt’s notion of performative disclosure helps us to rethink the individuated actor, not as a sovereign and self-transparent subject whose action expresses an authentic individual essence or constative what, but rather as a decentered and ecstatic who whose action reveals meaningful dimensions of the world and of the actor’s unique situation in history, through the performance of acts and speech before public spectators. The idea that no actor can stand in a position of control with respect to his life story extends to a critical displacement of the notion of freedom understood as sovereignty and of political projects that attempt to make history. Action, as praxis and not poiesis, is best understood through Arendt’s metaphor of performance, rather than productive art. There are new interpretive possibilities for Arendt’s theory of action, especially if we trace appearances of the ancient Greek daimon in Arendt’s publications and lecture notes, and among works that Arendt confronted: Plato’s Socratic dialogues and the myth of Er, Heidegger’s notion of aletheia as Dasein’s disclosure of Being, Jaspers’ valid personality, and Kant’s notion of aesthetic genius. The daimon implies that the public realm is a spiritual realm, that action is a form of connection to the divine, and that the actor is a decentered discloser of transcendent meanings and new possibilities within the world. The daimon also shows moral deliberation to be more vital to meaningful action than Arendt suggests prior to The Life of the Mind, so that the distinctions usually read in Arendt between actor and spectator, as well as those between acting, thinking, and judging, may be productively occluded. Arendt’s struggle to re-invigorate action’s disclosive capacity is at the center of her entire project. It sheds light on her critique of the world-alienating aspects of Marx, her insistent protection of a distinct political sphere from the private and the social spheres, and her rejection of Hegel’s philosophy of history in favor of a fragmentary historiography inspired by Kafka and Benjamin.

The present thesis deals with the concept of the banality of evil philosopher Hannah Arendt Along with other interpretations of the notion of evil. This work aims to introduce the concept of the banality of evil take Adolf Eichmann Nazi criminals Which Mel trial in Jerusalem, on the basis of Arendt created already mentioned the term banality of evil. Further more, the work tasked to introduce more starting positions on the question of evil. The work also focuses Another controversial idea of Jewish elites Collaboration with the Nazis. At work I have stated several perspectives on this issue and presented the views of opponents Arendt. The works appear as philosophical Thus sociological and psychological perspectives on the question of evil. To support the thesis of the banality of evil, I introduced the psychological experiments that partially confirmed the concept of Hannah Arendt.

La normalisation du système totalitaire implique un monde où l'aliénation de l'existence individuelle est devenue un fait quotidien. Le sauvetage de l'esprit de l'homme en de pareilles conditions dépend de démarches comme celles de Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel et Paul Ricœur, qui posent la question de la transcendance.

Es gibt Situationen, in denen das Leben seine Glaubwürdigkeit verliert. Lukian erfährt dies am eigenen Leib. Er kann nicht glauben, dass sein Großvater gestorben ist. Und dann liegt da auf einmal diese geheimnisvolle Papierrolle unter seinem Bett. Ihr Inhalt stellt all das in Frage, was Lukian bisher selbstverständlich erschien. Was ist der Mensch – nur eine Marionette in einem großen Theaterstück? Die Suche nach Antworten treibt ihn auf eine abenteuerliche Reise zu den Wurzeln unserer Kultur. Er trifft auf die großen Denker der Vergangenheit und diskutiert mit ihnen über die Freiheit des Willens und die Existenz des Ichs. Ein kleiner, unscheinbarer Spiegel begleitet ihn dabei. Zunächst erscheinen in ihm nur rätselhafte Umrisse. Doch nichts bleibt, wie es ist – auf dem Weg zum Ende der Welt.

Es gibt Situationen, in denen das Leben seine Glaubwürdigkeit verliert. Lukian erfährt dies am eigenen Leib. Er kann nicht glauben, dass sein Großvater gestorben ist. Und dann liegt da auf einmal diese geheimnisvolle Papierrolle unter seinem Bett. Ihr Inhalt stellt all das in Frage, was Lukian bisher selbstverständlich erschien. Was ist der Mensch – nur eine Marionette in einem großen Theaterstück? Die Suche nach Antworten treibt ihn auf eine abenteuerliche Reise zu den Wurzeln unserer Kultur. Er trifft auf die großen Denker der Vergangenheit und diskutiert mit ihnen über die Freiheit des Willens und die Existenz des Ichs. Ein kleiner, unscheinbarer Spiegel begleitet ihn dabei. Zunächst erscheinen in ihm nur rätselhafte Umrisse. Doch nichts bleibt, wie es ist – auf dem Weg zum Ende der Welt.

Dans le chapitre du Contrat social consacré à la mort du corps politique, Rousseau rappelle que cette mort est « la pente naturelle et inévitable des Gouvernements les mieux constitués ». En effet, poursuit-il, « si Sparte et Rome ont péri, quel État peut espérer de durer toujours ? Si nous voulons former un établissement durable, ne songeons donc point à le rendre éternel ». Malgré l’avertissement de Rousseau, la tendance à rendre l’ordre politique éternel semble être un phénomène constant, jusqu’à nos jours. En témoigne l’idée d’une « fin de l’histoire » résultant de l’alliance du capitalisme et de la démocratie libérale, ou d’un modèle occidental se comprenant comme la réalisation du seul but de l’histoire, à laquelle ne s’opposeraient que des puissances « retardatrices ». À travers ces phénomènes se manifeste une « politique du temps », un discours de légitimation de l’ordre politique donnant un sens politique à sa dimension temporelle.Compris de cette manière, le problème que pose la « politique du temps » ne peut être abordé par une critique limitée à ses derniers avatars, telle la thèse de la fin de l’histoire. Il est au contraire nécessaire de remonter à la racine du problème, c’est-à-dire à la place qu’occupe cette question au sein du rapport entre temps et politique. Si la politique du temps s’avère aussi tenace, c’est en effet parce qu’elle s’inscrit dans un questionnement intrinsèquement lié à l’ordre politique, confronté à la nécessité d’assurer son « être-dans-le-temps ». La politique du temps répond à cette nécessité par une politisation du temps et de l’histoire pouvant conduire, dans sa forme extrême, à une éternisation de l’ordre politique, qui prétend alors englober la totalité du temps, du passé au futur.Compte tenu de la persistance de cette conception temporelle de l’ordre politique, de même qu’il ne suffit pas de limiter la critique à ses avatars actuels, de même serait-il impropre de la diriger contre sa seule forme extrême, dans la mesure où ce sont précisément certains discours proclamant la fin des idéologies qui tendent à reproduire aujourd’hui les structures de la politique du temps. Par conséquent, ce n’est qu’en abordant dans son ensemble le problème formé par la atemporalisation du politique et la politisation du temps qu’il est possible d’attaquer à la racine ce type de discours de légitimation, sous toutes ses formes.Pour mener à bien ce projet, deux objectifs complémentaires, correspondant aux deux fils directeurs de l’analyse, sont traités en parallèle. D’une part, nous proposons de systématiser la question du temps politique afin de montrer les grands traits communs aux phénomènes qui s’y rattachent et quelles directions s’ouvrent à la critique. Le second axe de lecture met l’accent sur les œuvres d’Eric Voegelin et de Karl Löwith en tant qu’elles apportent une contribution décisive tant à la systématisation du problème que, surtout, à son dépassement.Notre hypothèse de départ est que Löwith et Voegelin eux-mêmes sont conscients de la relation problématique entre temps et politique et cherchent, par l’intermédiaire de la dimension temporelle, à aborder un problème politique dont l’importance s’explique non seulement par la situation historique à laquelle ils sont directement confrontés, mais aussi par sa valeur systématique intrinsèque, en tant qu’il représente une évolution de la conception du politique. Tous deux sont convaincus de la nécessité de surmonter le nihilisme et l’absence de toute fondation durable en tant que tels, c’est-à-dire de surmonter la temporalisation radicale de l’ordre politique, mais également les tentatives visant à l’éterniser. C’est dans ce cadre que prennent sens leurs projets, qui cherchent à dissocier le politique et le temps et, en repensant leur relation, à éviter que tout point de référence permanent ne soit dissout par le cours du temps sans toutefois produire une éternité artificielle et absolue. / In the chapter of the Social Contract on the death of the body politic, Rousseau emphasizes that its death is “the natural and inevitable propensity even of the best constituted governments”. Indeed, he continues, “if Sparta and Rome have perished, what state can hope to last for ever? If we want the constitution we have established to endure, let us not seek, therefore, to make it eternal”. Despite Rousseau’s warning, the tendency to make the political order eternal seems to be a pervasive phenomenon even in our time, as can be seen in the idea of an “end of history” that results from the combination of capitalism and liberal democracy, or in a Western model conceived as the realisation of the sole aim of history that only “delaying” powers would resist. These are examples of a “politics of time”, a concept that refers to a type of discourse contributing to the legitimization of the political order by giving a political meaning to its temporal dimension. Understood in this way, the problem of the “politics of time” cannot be addressed by focusing only on its recent developments, such as the “end of history” thesis, it is also crucial to understand these developments in the broader context of the relation between time and politics. Consequently, only a fundamental critique can put an end to the “politics of time”. The origin of the persistence of the “politics of time” has to be traced back to an essential problem that the political order is facing, namely the necessity to ensure its existence in time. The “politics of time” answers this problem by politicizing time and history, which can lead, in its most extreme form, to an eternisation of the political order that pretends to last for all time.Considering that this temporal conception of the political order is still widely present in many contemporary discourses, it would be insufficient to limit the critique to contemporary phenomena or to the extreme forms of the politics of time in modern ideologies, since precisely some proclamations of the end of ideologies tend to repeat the structure of the politics of time. It is therefore necessary to tackle the problem of the temporalisation of politics and politicisation of time as a whole. This is the only way to question the different occurrences of this kind of legitimising discourse.To achieve this, this study has two parallel aims. First, I begin by reconstructing a systematic account of the question of political time in order to highlight the main characteristics of the phenomena that are related to it. My second aim is to analyse Eric Voegelin’s and Karl Löwith’s works regarding their contribution to the systematisation of the problem, but first and foremost insofar as they offer an answer to it.Central to this work is the claim that Löwith and Voegelin not only develop a theory of the problematic relation between time and politics, but also defend a solution to tackle this problem. This problem, as they see it, is not restricted to their particular historical situation but remains of interest as an evolution of the concept of the political itself. Both Löwith and Voegelin are convinced that nihilism and the lack of any durable foundation must be overcome as such or, in other words, that it is necessary to overcome not only the temporalisation of the political order but also the attempts to “eternalise” it. The meaning and significance of Löwith’s and Voegelin’s projects appear clearly in this framework, as they can be seen as two attempts to dissociate the political from the temporal and, by reworking this relation, to prevent the relativisation of any durable foundation in the flow of time without, however, creating an artificial and absolute eternity.

Thesis (MA (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / The Deutsche Chronik, a nine volume family saga by the German author Walter Kempowski (1929 – 2007) modelled on Kempowski’s own family parallels the travails of a people seeking to wrench themselves loose from a past that is however always present. In this analysis, two of the novels of these chronicles of the Rostock middle class will be studied according to their portrayal of the question of German guilt. Thus far in secondary literature, the question of Kempowski’s portrayal of guilt in his novels has only been sparsely dealt with. The novel Tadellöser and Wolff (1971) in which the setting is the port city of Rostock in the Second World war and Uns geht’s ja noch gold (1972) in which the post-war years under soviet occupation are detailed lend themselves to an analysis of the question of guilt, as they cover a time period in German history (1939 – 1948) which is decisive in its examination. In this analysis, the question of guilt in the two novels by Kempowski will be examined according to a theoretical framework presented by two important studies on the question of guilt in Germany, firstly the study Die Schuldfrage. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Frage (1946) by Karl Jaspers and secondly Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit (2006) by Aleida Assmann.

En komparativ analys av dödsskildringar i två moderna romaner, Niels Lyhne skriven av J.P. Jacobsen och Stoner av John Williams. Diskuterar den moderna apokalypsen, utvecklingen från tidigmoderna till senmoderna romaner och Karl Jaspers gränsögonblick.

The Political Thought of Karl Jaspers - Abstract The aim of the dissertation was to interpret the thinking of Karl Jaspers as an endeavour to clarify the connecting lines between the basic characteristics of human being and its historical and political dimensions. In the book we reconstructed Jaspers' spiritual development from systematic-theoretical research to the engagement of a public intellectual. As his main legacy are shown the importance of the inseparability, of a mutual cultivation and prove of philosophical foundation and historical being as well as exploration. Jaspers is presented as an important participant in the discussions about the problems of German society from the 1930s to the 1960s, whose contribution laid not in a philosophically "more abstract" analysing of problems, but in discovering that social and political being cannot do without philosophical self-reflection of man, of the structure of human existence and knowledge and of the principial values derived from it. In his confrontations with the situation of German culture, politics and society, Jaspers enriched the public debate by cultivating the philosophical and methodical consciousness. He emphasized the distinctions between the nature and instruments of the different spheres of human spirit (of sciences, religion, philosophy...