This paper has three purposes: first, to explicate the ex istential basis of Arendt's theory of action. This will be done by first tracing the intellectual derivation of Arendt's existentialism and the modifications she made to fit it in to her public realm. Second, I will demonstrate the con nection between Arendt's existentialism and her formula tion of political freedom. Third, I will illustrate throughout that Arendt's political ideas, if they are to be properly understood, must be subsumed under her (...) existentialism .\nPart I treats Arendt's effort to find a home for the in dividual Human Being by attacking the modern tendency to make freedom an inner domain of the mind and refuge from the outside world. We will see how she uses the ideas of Heidegger and Jaspers to counter the Being of Kant and the philosophy of Mill and Augustine. Part II demonstrates her effort to make freedom a world reality and counter to the forces of totalitarianism: the modern enchantment with totality and an inexorable history. She attacks the Will, consciousness, Being, and the historical process itself.\nFinding no suitable conceptualization of freedom which makes it political by giving it a public space, Arendt turns finally to Jaspers' communicative existentialism and Duns Scotus' emphasis on contingency. (shrink)

"Bernstein argues that many themes that emerged in the course of Arendt's attempts tounderstand specifically Jewish issues shaped her thinking about politics in general and the life ofthe mind.

The death of any great philosopher invariably spawns a plethora of essays in defense, refutation, or explication. Indeed, the sign of the philosopher’s greatness can be measured by the number of essays his work generates. Hannah Arendt once commented on the generation of writers Karl Marx supported. This is as it should be. For greatness needs criticism as much as it requires testimony. And the testimony which follows is that of a defense; one which seeks to clarify a longstanding paradox (...) in Arendt’s work. (shrink)

In this book she describes the perplexing crises which modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice ...

From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. This book tells how in the early decades of the twentieth century, intellectuals abandoned their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. It is of interest to those who teach and preach the human sciences.

The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt rereads Arendt's political philosophy in light of newly gained insights into the historico-cultural background of her work.

The death of any great philosopher invariably spawns a plethora of essays in defense, refutation, or explication. Indeed, the sign of the philosopher’s greatness can be measured by the number of essays his work generates. Hannah Arendt once commented on the generation of writers Karl Marx supported. This is as it should be. For greatness needs criticism as much as it requires testimony. And the testimony which follows is that of a defense; one which seeks to clarify a longstanding paradox (...) in Arendt’s work. (shrink)

Jerome Kohn, Arendt's longtime assistant, has compiled, edited, and annotated her manuscripts for publication, beginning with some of her earliest published work and including essays on Augustine, Rilke, Kierkegaard, and figures of the nineteenth-century "Berlin Salon"; the loyalties of immigrant groups within the United States; the unification or "federation" of Europe; "the German problem"; religion, politics, and intellectual life; the dangers of isolation and careerism in American society; the logical consequences of "scientific" theories of Nature and History; the terror that (...) was the organizing principle of both the Nazi and the Communist states. (shrink)