Hannah Arendt, Sociology and Political Modernity

Abstract

Hannah Arendt has only rarely been regarded as an important critic of sociology, and is generally classified as a political theorist. This article argues that Arendt's engagement with the theoretical foundations of sociology both constitutes an important critique of certain sociological tendencies derived from its classical origins and is central to understanding the development of her own social and political thought. Arendt's theory of activity is initially reconstructed and defended as the basis for her criticism of the tendency of many sociological paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. Her critique of the explanatory assumptions underlying the concept of a `social process' is then applied to recent theorizing within historical sociology, with particular reference to the problematic assumptions surrounding the concept of sovereignty.