Abstract

GUEVARA ARISTIZABAL, Juan Felipe  and  MERCADO REYES, Agustín. Science and banality: in search of new responsibilities. En-clav. pen [online]. 2022, vol.16, n.32, e546.  Epub Sep 26, 2022. ISSN 2594-1100.  https://doi.org/10.46530/ecdp.v0i32.546.

Modern science has been one of the greatest adventures of thought. As Hannah Arendt has shown, it has brought about a veritable cosmic shift in our perspective as a species, allowing us to step outside of the terrestrial limit that seemed to constitute the human condition. Nevertheless, Arendt’s description of the power of science has as its counterpoint a conceptualization of evil as an incapacity or refusal to think, especially to think from the perspective of someone else - what she called “banal evil”. Given the importance of the scientific enterprise in our own destiny, and also the turmoil in which our world is in recent times, it seems necessary to ask: is it possible that scientific practices have a relationship with banal evil? Here we explore the possible relationship between them, as well as the ways in which this question points to another possible science, a science that can be accountable and responsible for its own actions.

Keywords : Hannah Arendt; Earth Alienation; Thoughtlessness; Banality of Evil; Scientific Responsibility; Unlimited Knowledge.