The article addresses the concept of life in relation to humanities as seen by Hannah Arendt. In the 1950s, Arendt criticized humanities for their inability to understand the specific character of the world as a space of appearance in which historical events take place. Instead they focused on grasping the expressions of human nature and/or a human as being stripped of normal relations to the others. These two moments are inherently intertwined since the latter is possible only under the condition of worldlessness. Arendt’s aim is not only to provide a methodological alternative, but also to understand the historical conditions under which the world as a condition and framework of understanding is abandoned. In her approach the concept of life is of central importance, since it is the background against which modern self-interpretation takes place and is therefore the formative condition of the absence of the world.
The article deals with three phenomena (namely those of evil, power and violence) as approached by three prominent thinkers: social psychologist Ph. Zimbardo, philosopher H. Arendt and culture critic and philosopher S. Žižek. The elucidation of the relationships between the phenomena at issue bears empirical as well as political ethical character, bringing to the foreground similarities and differences between these three thinkers. In conclusion, the stress is put on the need for abstract ethical and social- political considerations to take into account the empirical researches in social psychology.
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