Politics and freedom: human will and action in the thought of Hannah Arendt

Abstract

This study is an interpretive survey of Hannah Arendt's lifework taken from the perspective of her understanding of freedom. The author demonstrates that throughout her life, Arendt was preoccupied with establishing the primacy of political freedom over the inwardly philosophical, and that she continually posited freedom in its true sense to be a political phenomenon. Despite the complexity of Arendt's work, the author asserts that her thought is quite coherent and a unique contribution to political thought.