Arendt's Heideggerianism: Contours of a ‘Postmetaphysical’ political theory?

Abstract

In the recent critique of ‘Western metaphysics’ by post‐structuralist and postmodern theorists, there has emerged a distinctive line of thought which seeks to apply such critique to the domain of political theory. This paper approaches Hannah Arendt's conceptualisation of the political as a proto‐type of such a theorisation, deploying as it does key elements of the Heideggerian (and more broadly, phenomenological) position so as to rethink the nature of the political. By delineating the specifically ‘post‐metaphysical’ moments of Arendt's theory and its corresponding critique of political modernity, I endeavour to illuminate both the advantages and pitfalls of contemporary efforts at developing a philosophical conception of the political on the basis of a neo‐Heideggerian position.