Hannah Arendt, 1906–1975

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Villa
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

AbstractThis essay provides an overview of the life and theoretical concerns of Hannah Arendt. It traces the way her experience as a German Jew in the 1930s informed her analysis of totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism and her idea of the “banality of evil” in Eichmann in Jerusalem. The essay takes issue with those of Arendt's critics who detect a lack of “love of the Jewish people” in her writing. It also traces the way Arendt's encounter with totalitarian evil led to a deeper questioning of the anti-democratic impulses in the Western tradition of political thought—a questioning that finds its fullest articulation in The Human Condition and On Revolution. Throughout, my concern is to highlight Arendt's contribution to thinking “the political” in a way friendly to the basic phenomenon of human plurality. I also highlight her recovery and extension of the main themes of the civic republican tradition.

Hannah Arendt

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter explores the origins of the antidemocratic strain in Hannah Arendt's thought, tracing it from its beginnings in her classic study of totalitarianism to its apogee in her next major work, The Human Condition. It then shows that in her later writings a change is evident. It appeared first in the last chapter of On Revolution (1963) and more strikingly in the collection of essays, Crises of the Republic (1969). While on the way to what can fairly be described as a leftward position, she modified some of her most characteristic categories. Within limits, and in her own way, she was in the course of reflecting upon the political events of the 1960s, radicalized.

The Politics of Worldlessness

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-127
Author(s):  
Roland Végső
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Political World ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

The chapter examines Hannah Arendt’s critique of martin Heidegger and concentrates on the way Arendt tries to subvert the Heideggerian paradigm of worldlessness. While for Heidegger, the ontological paradigm of worldlessness was the lifeless stone, in Arendt’s book biological life itself emerges as the worldless condition of the political world of publicity. The theoretical challenge bequeathed to us by Arendt is to draw the consequences of the simple fact that life is worldless. The worldlessness of life, therefore, becomes a genuine condition of impossibility for politics: it makes politics possible, but at the same time it threatens the very existence of politics. The chapter traces the development of this argument in three of Arendt’s major works: The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and The Life of the Mind.

29. Arendt

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Lacroix
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Political Interpretation ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter examines a number of key concepts in Hannah Arendt's work, with particular emphasis on how they have influenced contemporary thought about the meaning of human rights. It begins with a discussion of Arendt's claim that totalitarianism amounts to a destruction of the political domain and a denial of the human condition itself; this in turn had occurred only because human rights had lost all validity. It then considers Arendt's formula of the ‘right to have rights’ and how it opens the way to a ‘political’ conception of human rights founded on the defence of republican institutions and public-spiritedness. It shows that this ‘political’ interpretation of human rights is itself based on an underlying understanding of the human condition as marked by natality, liberty, plurality and action, The chapter concludes by reflecting on the so-called ‘right to humanity’.

And Worldlessness, Alas, is Always a Kind of Barbarism: Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Educating in Worldless Times

2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-532
Author(s):  
Stephanie Mackler
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Best Response ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

Background/Context In 1958, Hannah Arendt wrote “The Crisis in Education,” arguing that schools should not be used for political purposes and should instead introduce children to what she calls “the world.” The world, for Arendt, comprises the artifacts, ideas, values, and interactions that connect people together. In that same year, she published The Human Condition, a damning analysis of the problem of what she calls “world alienation” in the modern era. By this, she means that we experience a radical sense of disconnection and alienation from the physical and social world we share with others. The tension between these two pieces is provocative, because one advocates giving children a world, while the other suggests that there is no longer a world to give. Purpose/Objective This article begins from the aforementioned point of tension to consider what Arendt might have said about education in 2008, particularly in light of the discussion of world alienation in The Human Condition and Arendt's later work on thinking in The Life of the Mind. Although Arendt's analysis of worldlessness is multifaceted, this article focuses on one specific aspect of her argument: the way our very approaches to thinking— including the way we conduct scholarly inquiry—contribute to the loss of the world. Research Design This work is philosophical in nature, focusing on several of Hannah Arendt's published works. Conclusions/Recommendations Drawing on Arendt's work on thinking, the author argues that the best response to worldlessness is a specific type of thinking. The article concludes by suggesting that educational researchers and practitioners consider the ways in which education is currently implicated in the problem of world alienation, as well as the ways that we can start thinking differently in response. “The future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems to be possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself.”1

scholarly journals Il «sistema dell’egoismo universale» e la condizione presente dell’Italia

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Gaspare Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Giacomo Leopardi ◽  
Original Line ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Human Condition

I intend to deal with the political thought of Giacomo Leopardi, especially in the Zibaldone, according to his conceptions on the contrast between reason and nature and on the contrast between ancient and modern, focusing attention on his analysis of the morale of the Italians, in order to identify their original line of interpretation in the analysis of the relationship between individuals and nations in the modern age, and in Italy in particular. The analysis of his political reflection cannot be separated from that of his moral and anthropological vision on the human condition. I dwell on three moments of his moral, social and anthropological vision of the nation, with a focus on the theme of individualism and the system of universal selfishness typical of Modernity.

On Hearing the Daughters’ Call

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-155
Author(s):  
Elva Orozco Mendoza ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Maternal Activism ◽  
The Human Condition

This article offers an interpretation of anti-feminicide maternal activism as political in northern Mexico by analyzing it alongside Hannah Arendt’s concepts of freedom, natality, and the child in The Human Condition. While feminist theorists often debate whether maternalism strengthens or undermines women’s political participation, the author offers an unconventional interpretation of Arendt’s categories to illustrate that the meaning and practice of maternalism radically changes through the public performance of motherhood. While Arendt does not seem the best candidate to navigate this debate, her concepts of freedom and the child provide a productive perspective to rethink the relationship between maternalism and citizenship. In making this claim, this article challenges feminist political theories that depict motherhood as the chief source of women’s subordination. In the case of northern Mexico, anti-feminicide maternal activism illustrates how the political is also a personal endeavor, thereby complementing the famous feminist motto.

The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt Edited by Dana Villa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 320p. $55.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 627-628
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Cambridge University

This is an excellent collection of essays about the political thought of Hannah Arendt. Its editor, Dana Villa, has assembled a first-rate group of scholars, many of whom are already well known for their contributions to Arendt studies. The volume is distinguished by the high quality of its contributions and by the effort of so many of its contributors to go beyond standard lines of exegesis to raise interesting questions and to press the boundaries of Arendt commentary. Arendt's work has received a great deal of attention from political theorists in recent years. The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt makes clear the richness of her thinking, the range of her concerns, and the ability of her writings to inspire creative commentary and constructive political theory.

Public Things, Shared Space, and the Commons

Public Things ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Honig
Keyword(s):  
Shared Memory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Public ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Lincoln Memorial ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Human Condition

This epilogue compares the public things model with that of two others, the commons (or undercommons) and shared space. It argues that while all three models respond to the democratic need, public things have their own specific and necessary contribution to make. The Lincoln Memorial is the sort of thing Hannah Arendt has in mind as the basis of shared memory and action in The Human Condition. The commons model identifies the losses caused by dispossession, appropriation, and accumulation, and public things may well look like one more enclosure in a very long line of them. This epilogue discusses the contributions that all three models can make to the project of preventing ever-increasing privatization and promoting justice and equality in contemporary democratic societies.

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