Introduction

Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind · Volume One: Thinking · printed pp. 3–4

1The title I have given this lecture series, The Life of the Mind, sounds pretentious自负的, and to talk about Thinking seems to me so presumptuous僭越的 that I feel I should start less with an apology致歉 than with a justification辩护.

词apology vs. justification — apology = 致歉、为过失辩解；justification = 给出正当理由、主张权利。她特意选后者：不是道歉，而是说明自己有理由这样做。

2No justification, of course, is needed for the topic itself, especially not in the framework of eminence崇高地位 inherent固有的 in the Gifford Lectures.

引用the Gifford Lectures — 英国著名系列讲座，1888 年设立，主题为自然神学（natural theology）。本书即源自阿伦特 1973 年在阿伯丁大学所做的吉福德讲座。她借其声望说明：主题本身无需辩护。

3What disturbs me is that I try my hand at it, for I have neither claim nor ambition to be a "philosopher" or be numbered among what Kant, not without irony, called Denker von Gewerbe (professional thinkers).¹

引用Denker von Gewerbe — 康德的反讽用语，字面"以思想为行当的人"，即"职业思想家"。阿伦特拒绝这一标签——这奠定全书立场：思考是人人皆可从事的活动，而非行会式的专业。

注脚注 1 为阿伦特原注，见原书 pp. 217–238。

4The question then is, should I not have left these problems in the hands of the experts, and the answer will have to show what prompted me to venture涉险进入 from the relatively safe fields of political science and theory into these rather awesome令人敬畏的 matters, instead of leaving well enough alone.

5Factually, my preoccupation萦怀、专注 with mental activities has two rather different origins.

6The immediate impulse促因、冲动 came from my attending the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.

典故the Eichmann trial — 阿道夫·艾希曼（Adolf Eichmann）是纳粹"最终解决方案"中负责组织犹太人押运的官员；战后逃往阿根廷，1960 年被以色列特工抓获，1961 年在耶路撒冷受审并被处决。阿伦特为《纽约客》全程报道。

7In my report of it² I spoke of "the banality of evil."

引用"the banality of evil" — 阿伦特自己的著名短语，出自《艾希曼在耶路撒冷》（1963）的副标题"A Report on the Banality of Evil"。banal = 平庸、陈腐。直译应为「恶之平庸（性）」——中心词是 banality（平庸），of evil 是修饰，即"平庸"是用来述说"恶"的那个性质：恶竟然是平庸的。通行译名「平庸之恶」语序被倒置，读如"平庸的恶（banal evil）"，略偏移了阿伦特的本意。

8Behind that phrase, I held no thesis or doctrine, although I was dimly隐约地 aware of the fact that it went counter to our tradition of thought—literary, theological, or philosophic—about the phenomenon of evil.

9Evil, we have learned, is something demonic恶魔般的; its incarnation化身 is Satan, a "lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18), or Lucifer, the fallen angel ("The devil is an angel too"—Unamuno) whose sin is pride ("proud as Lucifer"), namely, that superbia of which only the best are capable: they don't want to serve God but to be like Him.

引用"lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18) — 《路加福音》10:18，耶稣："我曾看见撒但从天上坠落，像闪电一样。"

典故Lucifer, the fallen angel — Lucifer 拉丁文意为"光之使者"。传统将其视为因骄傲而背叛上帝、被逐出天堂的堕落天使，并与撒但等同。

引用"The devil is an angel too"—Unamuno — 米格尔·德·乌纳穆诺（Miguel de Unamuno, 1864–1936），西班牙哲学家、作家。

典故superbia / "proud as Lucifer" — superbia 为拉丁文"骄傲"，基督教七宗罪之首，即路西法之罪。"不愿侍奉上帝，而要与上帝相等"——典出反叛者的傲慢（拉丁语 non serviam，"我不侍奉"）。

10Evil men, we are told, act out of envy嫉妒; this may be resentment怨恨 at not having turned out well through no fault of their own (Richard III) or the envy of Cain, who slew Abel because "the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard."

典故Richard III — 莎士比亚同名剧的反派；因天生畸形、"未能生得周正"而怨恨世界，遂作恶。

引用Cain and Abel — 《创世记》4 章。该隐因上帝悦纳弟弟亚伯的祭物却不悦纳自己的，出于嫉妒杀死亚伯——人类第一桩谋杀。引文出自创世记 4:4–5。

11Or they may be prompted by weakness (Macbeth).

典故Macbeth — 莎士比亚悲剧；麦克白之恶源于意志薄弱，受野心与他人怂恿驱使，而非天性凶残。

12Or, on the contrary, by the powerful hatred wickedness邪恶 feels for sheer goodness (Iago's "I hate the Moor: my cause is hearted"; Claggart's hatred for Billy Budd's "barbarian" innocence, a hatred considered by Melville a "depravity according to nature"), or by covetousness贪欲, "the root of all evil" (Radix omnium malorum cupiditas).

引用Iago, "I hate the Moor" — 莎士比亚《奥赛罗》中的伊阿古，以近乎无动机的恶谋害摩尔人奥赛罗。"my cause is hearted" = 我的恨意已深植于心。

典故Claggart / Billy Budd — 梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）小说《比利·巴德》：军士长克拉加特憎恨水手比利天真无邪的善良，梅尔维尔称之为"顺乎本性的堕落"（depravity according to nature）。

引用Radix omnium malorum cupiditas — 拉丁文，"贪欲是万恶之根"，出自《提摩太前书》6:10。

13However, what I was confronted with was utterly different and still undeniably无可否认地 factual.

14I was struck by a manifest明显的 shallowness浅薄 in the doer that made it impossible to trace the uncontestable无可争辩的 evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives.

15The deeds were monstrous骇人的, but the doer—at least the very effective one now on trial—was quite ordinary, commonplace平庸的, and neither demonic nor monstrous.

16There was no sign in him of firm ideological意识形态的 convictions or of specific evil motives, and the only notable characteristic one could detect in his past behavior as well as in his behavior during the trial and throughout the pre-trial police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity but thoughtlessness不思考、无思.

词thoughtlessness — 本书的关键词。不是"愚蠢"（stupidity），而是"不思考"：缺乏内在的自我对话与反思。阿伦特由此提出全书的核心问题——思考的活动本身是否能阻止人作恶。

17In the setting of Israeli court and prison procedures he functioned as well as he had functioned under the Nazi regime but, when confronted with situations for which such routine procedures did not exist, he was helpless, and his cliché-ridden满口陈词滥调的 language produced on the stand, as it had evidently done in his official life, a kind of macabre阴森可怖的 comedy.

18Clichés, stock phrases, adherence墨守、遵奉 to conventional因袭的, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence.

19If we were responsive有所回应的 to this claim all the time, we would soon be exhausted; Eichmann differed from the rest of us only in that he clearly knew of no such claim at all.

20It was this absence of thinking—which is so ordinary an experience in our everyday life, where we have hardly the time, let alone the inclination意愿、倾向, to stop and think—that awakened my interest.

21Is evil-doing (the sins of omission不作为、疏漏, as well as the sins of commission作为、犯下) possible in default of not just "base motives" (as the law calls them) but of any motives whatever, of any particular prompting of interest or volition意志、意愿?

注sins of omission / commission — 基督教与法律传统的区分：commission 是"作为之罪"（做了不该做的），omission 是"不作为之罪"（该做而未做）。

注"base motives" (as the law calls them) — 法律用语，指"卑劣动机"。德国刑法中蓄意谋杀（Mord）的构成要件之一即"出于卑劣动机"。

22Is wickedness, … [接下页]