On some ‘long-forgotten propositions’: Reflections on the ‘Epilogue’ to Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem

• Author: Hilb, C.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a2
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Citation: 2022 Acta Juridica 52
• Pages: 52-69

52

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a2

On some ‘long-forgotten propositions’:

Reections on the ‘Epilogue’ to Arendt’s

Eichmann in Jerusalem

CLAU DIA HILB*

This contr ibution focuses on the last pa ges of the Epilogue of

Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt, but it concer ns a question

that runs through Arendt’s work practically i n its entirety, which

can be put as follows: How can we judge when we can no longer

rely on the certainties of t radition, when – with the emergence of

totalit aria nism – the categories a nd concepts with which we used

to judge no longer help us to account for the horrifying rea lity of

crimes of a n unknow n nature and of criminals who do not comply

with the notion of criminals t hat we used to consider? The text aims

to dwell on these somewhat strange na l pages of Arendt’s chronicle

of Eichman n’s trial to tr y to see how they nourish our reection on

how to confront an u nknown ev il of a new ki nd.

‘Qu’on ne s’étonne donc pas si un cri me insondable

appelle en quelque sorte une méditation inépuisable.’

Vladi mir Jankélévitch, L’imprescriptible1

‘When the incomprehensible is presented as routine,

sensitivity mercifully diminishes.’

Yosal Rogat, The Eichmann Trial and the Rule of Law 2

I IN TRODUCTION

One of the main concerns that has been with me for most, if not

all, of my intellectua l life has been to inquire into the means of

emerging from the traumatic past of the military dictatorship that

ravaged Argentina between 1976 and 1983, and that plunged a

* Un iversid ad de Buenos Ai res / Conicet. I wish to t hank Dolor es Amat ,

Lucas Mar tín, L uciano Nose tto, Diego Pa redes, Mat ías Sir czuk and Facundo

Vega for the rigor ous, relentless and f riendly discu ssion of a prelimin ary version

of this tex t.

1 V J ankélévitch L’imprescriptible: Pardonn er? Dans l’honneur et la dignité (19 97).

2 Y Rogat The Ei chmann Trial and the R ule of Law (1961).

2022 Acta Juridica 52

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REFLE CTIONS ON THE ‘EPILOGUE ’ 53

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a2

country already traversed by politica l violence into unprecedented

criminal state violence. It was in this context that, in 2010, at

the instigation of my dear colleague Laurence Cornu, during a

lunch in Buenos Aires, I rst made contact with Philippe-Joseph

Salazar. When Laurence talked to me about Philippe, whom, if

I recall correctly, she had listened to at a conference in Nantes,

I had already been reading with great enthusiasm a tex t of his

in a volume on South Afr ica, co-edited with Barbara Cassin and

Olivier Cayla, and her insistence gave me the impetus to get in

touch with him.

I wrote to Phil ippe and, from his reply, a friendsh ip and

numerous joint projects were born simultaneously. Philippe

travelled to Argentina on severa l occasions and then I – and later,

other members of my team – travelled to South Africa; there were

events, publications and, since then, a relationship that makes

me happy and honours me, sustained by regular or ir regular

correspondence and sporadic meetings – in Buenos Aires, Cape

Town or Paris – rooted in common interests, shared humour and

Philippe’s always stimulating intelligence.

The intervention which I am pleased to contr ibute to this

volume takes up a topic that has been central to our academic

exchanges – and wh ich is crucial in my journey, although it is

doubtless only one of the innumerable paths of Philippe Sa lazar’s

prolic life of thought. It is a question of inquiring, once again,

into how to understand the incomprehensible, how to think about

that which exceeds what we have already thought, how to judge

that for which we possess no measure.

In this direction, my contr ibution wil l focus specically on a

text by Hannah Arendt, that is, her chronicle of the judgement

of Adolf Eichmann by an Israeli court in 1961, published in

1963 as a book under the title Eichmann in Jerusalem.3 And, more

specical ly, I will focus on its Epilogue … and, more specically

still, on its last two pages. But it concerns, of course, a question

that runs through Arendt’s work practically in its entirety, which

can be put as follows: How can we judge when we can no longer

rely on the certainties of tradition, when, with the emergence of

totalitarianism, the categories and concepts with which we used

to judge no longer help us to account for the horrif ying reality of

3 H A rendt Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report o n the Banality o f Evil (196 3).

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