José Ortega y Gasset and Hannah Arendt were two thinkers influenced by the phenomenological tradition for whom worldly experiences within a specific circumstance were essential to what it means to be human. This article, first, examines their notions of ‘amor mundi’ (Arendt) and ‘salvation of circumstance’ (Ortega), pointing out their similarities concerning the individual’s relationship to the world. It then moves on to investigate some of Ortega’s and Arendt’s conceptions about science, technology, and the concomitant bureaucratization and technocratization of the (...) world. The main thesis of this article will be that both thinkers fundamentally coincide on how the individual must relate to an increasingly scientifically and technologically-mediated world that produces isolation and mass–people. (shrink)

Among the many parallels between Hannah Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis is their shared interest in the kind of politics that is characteristic of the council movements, revolutionary moments and the political democracy of ancient Greece. This article seeks to elucidate how the two thinkers fill out and complement each other’s thought, with special attention to political creation—an ambiguous theme in Arendt’s thought. While critical of the notion of ‘making’ in the political field, Arendt also emphasizes the importance of building institutions. (...) To take this seriously means that her analyses of the nature of politics must be modified and, in this respect, Castoriadis’s understanding of politics as institution-building can serve as a guideline. However, Arendt’s concept of ‘plurality’ in the public sphere represents a level of political analysis that is underdeveloped in the work of Castoriadis. Taken together, their thought highlights many important aspects of political creation in a radical sense. (shrink)

For a long time, one of the most important tasks for education in liberal democracies has been to foster the next generation in core democratic values in order to prepare them for future political responsibilities. In spite of this, general trust in the liberal democratic system is in rapid decline. In this paper, the tension between the ambitions of liberal-democratic educational systems and contemporary challenges to central democratic ideas is approached by reconsidering Hannah Arendt’s critique of political education. This will (...) be done informed by her analysis of the tension between the concepts of state and nation. By showing how education, depending on its role as a tool of the state or the nation, may be a fundamental requirement for the establishment of a common world or the most effective tool for its destruction, the paper argues for the need to understand Arendt’s educational thinking in light of her wider political analysis. Rather than downplaying the provocative aspects of her critique, the paper argues for the need to use it as a starting point for thinking again how education may become an emancipatory undertaking capable of disarming contemporary threats to human plurality and freedom. (shrink)