Hannah Arendt

Western Philosophers 20th-century philosophy
Hannah Arendt
Name:	Hannah Arendt
Birth:	October 14, 1906 (Linden, Germany)
Death:	December 4, 1975 (New York, United States)
School/tradition:	Phenomenology, Existentialism
Main interests:	Politics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Greek philosophy, technology, Ontology, modernity, philosophy of history
Influences:	Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, Bertrand Russell, Karl Jaspers, Walter Benjamin
Influenced:	Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Giorgio Agamben , Seyla Benhabib

Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world." The 20th century brought with it upheavals that produced a series of conflicting developments within philosophy over the basis of knowledge and the validity of various absolutes. ... Image File history File links Hannah_Arendt_by_Fred_Stein_2. ... October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in Leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Linden is one of three English names for a genus of trees, Tilia, also known as lime and basswood. ... December 4 is the 338th day (339th on leap years) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq. ... Look up Phenomenology in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Politics, sometimes defined as the art and science of government[1], is a process by which collective decisions are made within groups. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Knowledge. ... Classical (or early) Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a level of technological mastery sufficient to leave the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ... In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek , genitive : of being (part. ... It has been suggested that Modern Times (history) be merged into this article or section. ... The philosophy of history asks at least these questions: what is the proper unit for the study of the human past? the individual, the city or sovereign territory, the civilization, or nothing less than the whole of the species?; what broad patterns can we discern through the study of the... Pre-Socratic philosophers are often very hard to pin down, and it is sometimes very difficult to determine the actual line of argument they used in supporting their particular views. ... Plato ( Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, wide, broad-shouldered) (c. ... Aristotle (Ancient Greek: AristotélÄ“s 384 – March 7, 322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in East Prussia. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel [] (August 27, 1770–November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (IPA:) (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900), a German philologist and philosopher, produced critiques of contemporary culture, religion, and philosophy centered around a basic question regarding the positive and negative attitudes toward life of various systems of morality. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. ... ... Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (born June 18, 1929 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher, political scientist and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory, best known for his concept of the public sphere. ... ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... Giorgio Agamben (1942 –) is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the University of Verona. ... Seyla Benhabib is a professor of political science at Yale and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a contemporary philosopher. ... October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in Leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... December 4 is the 338th day (339th on leap years) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... A political theorist is someone who engages in political theory. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ...

Biography

Arendt was born of secular Jewish parents in the then- independent city of Linden in Lower Saxony (which is now part of Hanover) and was raised in Königsberg (the hometown of her admired precursor Immanuel Kant) and Berlin. Jews (Hebrew: יהודים, Yehudim) are followers of Judaism or, more generally, members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation, or the Children of Israel), an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion. ... Hanover (German: Hannover []), on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany. ... Former German name of the city of Kaliningrad. ... Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in East Prussia. ... For other uses, see Berlin (disambiguation). ...

She studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger at the University of Marburg, and had a long, sporadic romantic relationship with him, something that has been criticised because of his Nazi sympathies. Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... The University of Marburg, officially called Philipps-Universität Marburg after its founder, the Landgrave Philipp I of Hesse (usually called the Magnanimous), was founded in 1527 and is the worlds first and oldest Protestant university. ... National Socialism redirects here. ...

During one of their breakups, Arendt moved to Heidelberg to write a dissertation on the concept of love in the thought of Saint Augustine, under the direction of the existentialist philosopher-psychologist Karl Jaspers. Heidelberg is a scenic city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, halfway between Stuttgart and Frankfurt. ... Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo, or Saint Augustine (November 13, 354–August 28, 430) was one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. ... Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. ...

The dissertation was published in 1929, but Arendt was prevented from habilitating (and thus from teaching in German universities) in 1933 because she was Jewish, and thereupon fled Germany for Paris, where she met and befriended the literary critic and Marxist mystic Walter Benjamin. While in France, Arendt worked to support and aid Jewish refugees. Habilitation is a term used within the university system in Germany, Austria, and some other European countries such as the German-speaking part of Switzerland, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. ... Marxism is the philosophy, social theory and political practice based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German socialist philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary. ... ...

However, with the German military occupation of parts of France following the French declaration of war during World War II, and the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, Arendt had to flee from France. In 1940, she married the German poet and philosopher Heinrich Blücher. Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ... Image:Arendt-blucher. ...

In 1941, Arendt escaped with her husband and her mother to the United States with the assistance of the American diplomat Hiram Bingham IV, who illegally issued visas to her and around 2500 other Jewish refugees. She then became active in the German-Jewish community in New York and wrote for the weekly Aufbau. As US Vice Consul in France during World War II, Hiram Bingham IV helped save over 2500 lives by granting Jews visas to escape the country. ... Aufbau is a weekly published by the German-Jewish community in New York, and founded in 1934. ...

After World War II she resumed relations with Heidegger, and testified on his behalf in a German denazification hearing. In 1950, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in 1959 became the first woman appointed a full professorship at Princeton. She also taught at The New School in New York City and served as a visiting scholar on The Committee of Social Thought at The University of Chicago. Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary and politics of any remnants of the Nazi regime. ... Naturalization is the process whereby a person becomes a national of a nation, or a citizen of a country, other than the one of his birth. ...

On her death at age 69 in 1975, Arendt was buried at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where her husband taught for many years. For other meanings of the word Bard, see Bard (disambiguation). ... Town in the Hudson Valley, near the towns of Red Hook, Tivoli and Rhinebeck. ...

Works

Arendt's work deals with the nature of power, and the subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism. Much of her work focuses on affirming a conception of freedom which is synonymous with collective political action among equals. Sociologists usually define power as the ability to impose ones will on others, even if those others resist in some way. ... Politics, sometimes defined as the art and science of government[1], is a process by which collective decisions are made within groups. ... In politics, authority (Latin auctoritas, used in Roman law as opposed to potestas and imperium) is often used interchangeably with the term power. However, their meanings differ. ... Totalitarianism is a typology employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. ...

Arguing against the libertarian assumption that "freedom begins where politics ends," Arendt theorizes freedom as public and associative, drawing on examples from the Greek polis, American townships, the Paris Commune, and the civil rights movements of the 1960's (among others) to illustrate this conception of freedom.

Arguably, her most influential work was The Human Condition (1958) in which she distinguishes labor, work, and action, and teases out the implications of these distinctions. Her theory of political action is extensively developed in this work. The Human Condition, published in 1958, is one of the central theoretical works of the philosopher Hannah Arendt. ...

Her first major book was The Origins of Totalitarianism, which traced the roots of Communism and Nazism, and their links to anti-Semitism. This book was controversial because it compared two subjects that some believe are irreconcilable. The Origins of Totalitarianism is a book by Hannah Arendt, dedicated to her husband Heinrich Blücher. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...

In her reporting of the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker, which evolved into the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, she raised the question whether evil is radical or simply a function of banality—the tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without critically thinking about the results of their action or inaction. Adolf Eichmann, Germany 1940. ... The New Yorkers first cover, which is reprinted most years on the magazines anniversary. ... Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. ... Evil is a term describing that which is regarded as morally bad, intrinsically corrupt, wantonly destructive, inhumane, or wicked. ... The Banality of Evil is a phrase coined in 1963 by Hannah Arendt in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem to describe the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by very ordinary people who accepted...

Her final book, The Life of the Mind was incomplete when she died, but is still widely read in its current form.

To live or die

Eugene McCarraher, wrote in 2006:

"On a sunny March morning in 1962, a taxi bearing Hannah Arendt collided with a truck as it sped across Central Park. Awakening in the ambulance, Arendt moved her limbs, rolled her eyes, and tested her memory by recalling decades, stanzas of poetry, and telephone numbers. As she later described the episode to her close friend Mary McCarthy, 'for a fleeting moment I had the feeling that it was up to me whether I wanted to live or die.' While she 'did not think that death was terrible,' she also thought that 'life was quite beautiful and that I rather like it.'

"Today, Arendt's brush with the Reaper might become another saccharine epiphany, denatured and packaged for the burgeoning market in 'uplift' and 'inspiration.' Arendt herself would surely recoil from much of our 'life-affirming' drivel. If it isn't advertising—'smell the roses' in our flower shop, 'appreciate the little things' with help from our investment firm—it's an unwitting invitation to forget the larger concerns of politics, philosophy, and religion. Having spent her life pondering the carnage and futility of the 20th, most murderous of centuries, and having escaped calamities far worse than an auto wreck, Arendt might well admonish us that beauty is always bound up with the broader forces of history, whose evasion and neglect will inevitably rob the world of its deepest charms...."

(Christianity Today, March/April 2006)

Arendt was instrumental in the creation of Structured Liberal Education (SLE) at Stanford University. She wrote a letter to the then president of Stanford University to convince the university to enact Mark Mancall's vision of a residentially-based humanities program.

Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. ... Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (born 1946 as Elisabeth Young) is an American academic and psychotherapist, currently a practicing psychoanalyst in New York City and on the faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. ...

Selected works

• Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin. Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation (1929)
• The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
• Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman (1958)
• The Human Condition (1958)
• Between Past and Future (1961)
• On Revolution (1963)
• Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)
• Men in Dark Times (1968)
• Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution (1969)
  "Civil Disobedience" originally appeared, in somewhat different form, in The New Yorker. Versions of the other essays originally appeared in The New York Review of Books.
• The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age; Edited by Ron H. Feldman (1978)
• Life of the Mind (1978)

The Origins of Totalitarianism is a book by Hannah Arendt, dedicated to her husband Heinrich Blücher. ... Rahel Varnhagen née Levin (b. ... The Human Condition, published in 1958, is one of the central theoretical works of the philosopher Hannah Arendt. ... Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. ...

Further reading

• Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth, Hannah Arendt : For Love of the World, Yale University Press (1982). ISBN 0300026609. (Paperback reprint edition, September 10, 1983, ISBN 0300030991; Second edition October 11, 2004 ISBN 0300105886.)

• Villa, Dana ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, Cambridge University Press (2001). ISBN-13: 9780521645713.

Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (born 1946 as Elisabeth Young) is an American academic and psychotherapist, currently a practicing psychoanalyst in New York City and on the faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. ...

See also

• Erich Heller

Erich Heller (March 27, 1911 — November 5, 1990); British essayist; one of the most important twentieth-century thinkers on the human condition. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Hannah Arendt

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Hannah Arendt

• Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The American Library of Congress has The Role of Experience in Hannah Arendt's Political Thought: Three Essays by Jerome Kohn, Director, Hannah Arendt Center, New School University. With link to Arendt's papers.
• European Graduate School - Hannah Arendt
• Hannah Arendt at Jewish Virtual Library
• Centenary Retrospective in Christianity Today magazine
• Hannah Arendt: Biography at FemBio
• "Thinking Out Loud" Review of a book of essays on Arendt, in Lingua Franca.

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• (French) Article on Hannah Arendt
• (Portuguese) Profile, collection of articles, and quotations on Hannah Arendt