The article analyzes Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil and addresses the controversies surrounding her interpretation of Adolf Eichmann’s attitude and behavior. The author presents the main criticisms directed at Arendt, particularly those concerning her depiction of Eichmann as an unreflective executor of orders, and discusses the views of selected critics and commentators of her thought. The text also explores issues of ideology, conformism, and lack of empathy as possible sources of evil. The article raises the question of the relevance and universality of Arendt’s concept in the context of contemporary analyses of genocide and mechanisms of dehumanization. It also considers whether the philosopher’s thesis can be examined independently of Eichmann himself.

This paper examines Richard Hönigswald’s contribution to a philosophy of concrete subjectivity. Its starting point is the tension between the transcendental subject and the empirically situated human being. Central to this is Hönigswald’s critical concept of objectivity: objects are not things in the world, but normative conditions for valid judgements, which are polymorphic in nature depending on the domain of reference. The general meaning of objectivity therefore lies not in an abstract form, but in the given reality of the here and now. This gives rise to anthropological implications: psychological experience, the physical organism, intersubjectivity, language and historical community appear as concretisations of transcendental subjectivity.