Hannah arendt biography livro

Born in 1906, German-born American philosopher Hannah Arendt is widely considered to be one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century. Her many books and articles have had a lasting influence on political theory and philosophy.

Beyond Arendt’s brilliantly original critique of the human condition, she is perhaps most famous for her coining of the phrase, the ‘banality of evil’. As I explore in my short explainer piece on the ‘banality of evil’, Arendt argues that evil does not have the Satan-like, villainous appearance we might typically associate it with.

Rather, evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time by unthinking people. Evil becomes commonplace; it becomes the everyday. Ordinary people — going about their everyday lives — become complicit actors in systems that perpetuate evil.

Early on in her academic life, Arendt was a student of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, with whom sh Hannah arendt the banality of evil.