The Anthem Companion To Hannah Arendt

293 Pages·2017·11.001 MB·English

by  Peter Baehr, Philip Walsh

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The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt
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ANTHEM COMPANIONS TO SOCIOLOGY
Anthem Companions to Sociology offer authoritative and comprehensive
assessments of major figures in the development of sociology from the past
two centuries. Covering the major advancements in sociological thought,
these companions offer critical evaluations of key figures in the American and
European sociological traditions and will provide students and scholars with
an in-depth assessment of the makers of sociology and chart their relevance to
modern society.
Series Editor
Bryan S. Turner—City University of New York, USA;
Australian Catholic University, Australia; and University of Potsdam, Germany
Forthcoming titles in this series include:
The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte
The Anthem Companion to Karl Mannheim
The Anthem Companion to Robert Park
The Anthem Companion to Phillip Rieff
The Anthem Companion to Gabriel Tarde
The Anthem Companion to Ernst Troeltsch
The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen
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The Anthem Companion

to Hannah Arendt
Edited by Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh
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Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2017
by ANTHEM PRESS
75– 76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
© 2017 Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters © individual contributors
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Baehr, Peter, editor. | Walsh, Philip, 1965– editor.
Title: The Anthem companion to Hannah Arendt /
edited by Peter Baehr, Philip Walsh.
Other titles: Companion to Hannah Arendt
Description: London, UK; New York, NY: Anthem Press, 2017. |
Series: Anthem companions to sociology; 1 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050044 | ISBN 9781783081851 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Arendt, Hannah, 1906–1975. |
Political science – History – 20th century. | Sociology – History – 20th century. |
Political sociology – History – 20th century. |
BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
Classification: LCC JC251.A74 A824 2017 | DDC 320.5–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050044
ISBN- 13: 978-1-78308-185-1 (Hbk)
ISBN- 10: 1-78308-185-6 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e- book.
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To David Kettler, friend and scholar of distinction,
we affectionately dedicate this book.
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CONTENTS

Editors’ Introduction: Arendt’s Critique
of the Social Sciences 1
Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh
Part I. BOOKS
Chapter 1. Arendt and Totalitarianism 25
Charles Turner
Chapter 2. The Human Condition and the Theory of Action 49
John Levi Martin
Chapter 3. Eichmann in Jerusalem: Heuristic Myth
and Social Science 75
Judith Adler
Chapter 4. “The Perplexities of Beginning”: Hannah
Arendt’s Theory of Revolution 107
Daniel Gordon
Chapter 5. The Life of the Mind of Hannah Arendt 129
Liah Greenfeld
Part II. SELECTED THEMES
Chapter 6. Hannah Arendt on Thinking, Personhood
and Meaning 155
Philip Walsh
Chapter 7. Explaining Genocide: Hannah Arendt and the
Social- Scientific Concept of Dehumanization 175
Johannes Lang
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viii THE ANTHEM COMPANION TO HANNAH ARENDT
Chapter 8. Arendt on Power and Violence 197
Guido Parietti
Chapter 9. The Theory of Totalitarian Leadership 221
Peter Baehr
References 249
Notes on Contributors 267
Index 269
1
EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: ARENDT’S

CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh

Hannah Arendt (1906–1 975) was a determined foe of the social sciences. She
lambasted their methods and derided their objectives. Sociology was a par-
ticular target of her ire. Yet here she is: the subject of a book that appears in
the Anthem Companions to Sociology series. The irony could not be plainer.
What accounts for it?
Arendt’s presence in the Anthem series is neither a lofty correction of a
disciplinary embarrassment – the paucity of “classic” female theorists – nor a
cynical marketing ploy. Today, a growing number of sociologists are claiming
Arendt for sociology, just as many in the past claimed Marx for it. It is not just
that her investigations into the nature of science, work, agency, power, revolu-
tion and human society itself afford new perspectives from which sociologists
can directly benefit. It is something more basic still. Arendt challenges us to
rethink what we are doing. She nudges us to refine, revise or abandon some of
our most basic intellectual reflexes.
It is startling to recall that, only 20 years ago, Arendt was still an esoteric
author in most of the humanities and almost totally unread in the social sci-
ences. Even within political theory and philosophy, disciplines to which she
has an evident affiliation, Arendt was a marginal figure. Yet over the past two
decades, her standing has steadily advanced from the fringe of intellectual
discussion toward its centre. A host of factors explains this dynamic: the reha-
bilitation of totalitarianism as a vital political concept following years in the
doldrums of Cold War polemics; the advent of genocidal campaigns in Africa,
the Balkans and the Middle East and, with them, new forms of ideology and
terror; the implosion of nations and the tragic reappearance of stateless peo-
ples; the growth of human rights discourses and human rights organizations;
renewed disquiet over the reach of the state and its encroachments on privacy;
the recovery of classical republicanism as a political alternative to liberalism