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Insightful writing on Arendt’s relevance to sociology, social thought and social issues by eminent international scholars

The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt offers a unique collection of essays on one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers. The companion encompasses Arendt’s most salient arguments and major works – The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Revolution and The Life of the Mind. The volume also examines Arendt’s intellectual relationships with Max Weber, Karl Mannheim and other key social scientists. Although written principally for students new to Arendt’s work, The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt also engages the most avid Arendt scholar.

Editors’ Introduction: Arendt’s Critique of the Social Sciences - Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh; Part I. Books; Chapter 1. Arendt and Totalitarianism - Charles Turner; Chapter 2. The Human Condition and the Theory of Action - John Levi Martin; Chapter 3. Eichmann in Jerusalem : Heuristic Myth and Social Science - Judith Adler; Chapter 4. “The Perplexities of Beginning”: Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Revolution - Daniel Gordon; Chapter 5. The Life of the Mind of Hannah Arendt - Liah Greenfeld; Part II. Selected Themes; Chapter 6. Hannah Arendt on Thinking, Personhood and Meaning - Philip Walsh; Chapter 7. Explaining Genocide: Hannah Arendt and the Social- Scientific Concept of Dehumanization - Johannes Lang; Chapter 8. Arendt on Power and Violence - Guido Parietti; Chapter 9. The Theory of Totalitarian Leadership - Peter Baehr; References; Notes on Contributors; Index.

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Sociologie, société et politique

Sociology

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Publié par	Anthem Press
Date de parution	02 janvier 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783086399
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0076€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt
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. TurnerCity 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
The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt
Edited by Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2017
by ANTHEM PRESS
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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.
To David Kettler, friend and scholar of distinction, we affectionately dedicate this book.
CONTENTS Editors’ Introduction: Arendt’s Critique of the Social Sciences Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh Part I. BOOKS Chapter 1. Arendt and Totalitarianism Charles Turner Chapter 2. The Human Condition and the Theory of Action John Levi Martin Chapter 3. Eichmann in Jerusalem : Heuristic Myth and Social Science Judith Adler Chapter 4. “The Perplexities of Beginning”: Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Revolution Daniel Gordon Chapter 5. The Life of the Mind of Hannah Arendt Liah Greenfeld Part II. SELECTED THEMES Chapter 6. Hannah Arendt on Thinking, Personhood and Meaning Philip Walsh Chapter 7. Explaining Genocide: Hannah Arendt and the Social-Scientific Concept of Dehumanization Johannes Lang Chapter 8. Arendt on Power and Violence Guido Parietti Chapter 9. The Theory of Totalitarian Leadership Peter Baehr
References
Notes on Contributors
Index
EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: ARENDT’S CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a determined foe of the social sciences. She lambasted their methods and derided their objectives. Sociology was a particular 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, revolution 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 sciences. 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 rehabilitation 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 peoples; 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 and socialism. All these developments evoke Arendtian concerns and arguments. Furthermore, the greater porousness between and among the humanities and social sciences in recent years, as a result of the impetus towards transdisciplinary studies, has encouraged academics to move across intellectual borders. Arendt, a wide-ranging thinker with much to say about politics, society, history, aesthetics, philosophy and education, is a natural beneficiary of this process.
The Purpose and Distinctiveness of This Book
The addition, then, of a volume on Hannah Arendt to the Anthem Companion series is timely. Extant compendia on Hannah Arendt’s work divide, roughly, into three categories. Some collections place Arendt squarely in the traditions of philosophy and political theory. Others approach her from the standpoints of literary and cultural studies. Still others read Arendt through the lenses of law and history. The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt is different from previous edited volumes. Its purpose is to connect her writing to fundamental sociological problems. Composed principally with the higher-level undergraduate student and graduate student in mind, it is sufficiently demanding to engage established scholars, as well as other readers already conversant with Arendt’s work.
Part I elucidates her most important books, following chronologically their genesis of publication: The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958), On Revolution (1963) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), together with the posthumously published The Life of the Mind (1978). Part II examines themes – personhood, power, leadership and genocide – that enable sociologists to think more deeply about these topics. Naturally, the boundary separating Parts I and II is permeable. Contributors to Part I invoke a range of Arendtian texts, even as they focus on one of them, while the authors of Part II dilate on some works more than others. It is redundant in this Introduction to summarize these contributions; the authors, lucid and learned, are their own best expositors. Instead, we think it more productive to identify Arendt’s divergence from and challenges to the social sciences. This sets the scene for the chapters that follow. All of them describe in detail one or more of Arendt’s arguments. All of them assess the cogency of her analysis and its use to sociological enquiry. Before addressing Arendt’s relevance for the social sciences, however, it is worth considering her biographical background.
A Biographical Sketch
That Hannah Arendt survived to become a notable theorist is itself a small miracle. She was born in Hannover, Germany, on October 14, 1906, the only child of secular Jewish, middle-class parents. Her father died when she was seven, leaving Martha (née Cohn) Arendt to raise her daughter in Königsberg where the family had moved in 1909. From an early age, Hannah Arendt was encouraged by her mother to avoid any sign of a victim mentality; if taunted by children’s anti-Semitic remarks (not that these were common), the young girl was supposed to stick up for herself, an expectation that seeded the moral and intellectual toughness with which she comported herself through life. Arendt’s mother was not political, and even the storms of the Great War little affected the town of Königsberg. Arendt, too, initially showed little interest in political questions. Her intellectual passion cleaved to the great literatures of Europe, to philosop