Abstract
In her essay “Truth and Politics,” Hannah Arendt distinguishes between “rational truth” and “factual truth.” Arendt associates “rational truth” with durability: the human mind will always be able to reproduce axioms, rational discoveries, and theories, so “the burning of all books of geometry would not be radically effective” (TP, 230). On the other hand, when it comes to “factual truth,” or the historical referent, we are dealing with something much more fragile that is in danger of being lost forever. Given that historical facts and accounts of events are the outcomes of human beings living and acting together in an ever-changing context — given that historical facts depend on the precariousness of human relationality rather than solitary deductions — Arendt notes that once the historical referent is lost, “no rational effort will ever bring [it] back” (TP, 231, emphasis added).
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