Between Socrates and Kant. Thinking and <em>sensus communis</em> in Arendt’s conception of the banality of evil

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how Hannah Arendt develops her concept of the banality of evil through a phenomenological appropriation of Kant’s theory of judgment and of the principle of sensus communis in particular. Even though Arendt initially defined the banality of evil as a form of thoughtlessness grounded upon her understanding of thinking as an inner dialogue with one’s ‘other’ self, I argue that she develops the concept much more extensively in relation to Kant’s doctrine of reflective judgment and the possibility of a sensus communis as a pre-conceptual model of unforced consensus for the public space. I further argue that her reading of Kant is carried out together with both an existential-ontological re-appraisal of appearances and its relation to the transcendental imagination. Through the emphasis on the sensus communis, the banality of evil can then be re-defined as a refusal of the same.