Arendt, Hannah (1906–75)

Abstract

Hannah Arendt, American political thinker of German origin, has recently received increasing attention from the academic community as well as from a broader public. This can be attributed to various developments. First, the end of communism, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the fading authority of Marxism after 1989 have generated the need for a different understanding of the world. Second, the ongoing debates in Central European countries about the legacy of totalitarianism have rekindled the interest in Arendt's approach to the analysis of totalitarianism. Third, the growing difficulty of Western political systems to integrate various social groups and the upcoming discussion on renewing democracy have given rise to basic questions about how to revive the political sphere. And last but not least, Arendt's concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘the political’ have again given fresh impetus to political theory and to the debate in the political public. Thus, Arendt's way of reflecting the political dimension of democracy fills a void in Western theory and political thinking, which did not arise until after the end of the Cold War. At the same time, her views are increasingly considered in the ongoing debate on establishing democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Arendt stressed the importance of political thinking and political theory in modern times. She was deeply influenced by the experience of the destructive power in both German National Socialism and Stalinist Communism, but her work cannot be categorized easily. Her notions can be classed within the field of philosophy as well as with historiography and political theory. But she does not object to being described as a political theorist in the sense of public political thinking. Throughout her life she was engaged in political thinking. Feeling the need to meet the intellectual challenge which came up with the self-destruction of European democracies after World War I that led to the strengthening of Stalinism and National Socialism, she published her first famous book Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951. Her last work, The Life of the Mind, was left unfinished, and was not published until two years after her death in 1975. The objective she pursued was to stimulate a way of human thinking, judging, and acting which orients toward renewing and protecting the political community of the citizen.