The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt

314 Pages·2003·11.63 MB·English

by  Seyla Benhabib

TH~ R~lUCTANT
MOD~RNI~M Of
HANNAH AR~NDT
MODERNITY AND
POLITICAL THOUGHT
Series Editor: Morton SchooIman
State University of New York at Albany
This unique collection of original studies of the great figures in the history of
political and social thought critically examines their contributions to our
understanding of modernity, its constitution, and the promise and problems
latent within it. These works are written by some of the finest theorists of our
time for scholars and students of the social sciences and humanities.
The following titles are available as New Editions from
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
The Augustinian Imperative: A Reflection on the Politics of Morality
by William E. Connolly
Emerson and Self-Reliance
by George Kateb
Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics
by Stephen K. White
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Politics ofthe Ordinary
by Tracy B. Strong
Michel Foucault and the Politics of Freedom
by Thomas L. Dumm
Reading "Adam Smith": Desire, History, and Value
by Michael 1. Shapiro
Thomas Hobbes: Skepticism, Individuality, and Chastened Politics
by Richard E. Flathman
Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild
by Jane Bennett
G.W.F. Hegel: Modemity and Politics
by Fred R. Dallmayr
The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt
by Seyla Benhabib
TH~ R~lUCTANT
MOO~RNI~M Of
HANNAH An~NOT
NEW EDITION
SEYLA BENHABIB
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Oxford
For Colombe Benhabib
with love and gratitude
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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PO Box 317, Oxford, OX2 9RU, UK
Copyright © 2000 AltaMira Press
New Preface and Series Editor's Introduction Copyright © 2003 by
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Typesetter: Christina M. Hill
"The Personal is not the Political" appearing as the appendix is reprinted with kind
permission of Boston Review.
All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
The Library of Congress cataloged the previous edition of this book as:
Benhabib, Seyla.
The reluctant modernism of Hannah Arendt / Seyla Benhabib.
p. cm. - (Modernity and political thought; vol. 10)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Arendt, Hannah-Contributions in political science.
2. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976-Contributions in political science.
3. Political science-Philosophy.
I. Title. II. Series.
JC251.A74B45 1996
320.5'092-dc20 95-50247
ISBN 0-7425-2150-8 (cloth: alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7425-2151-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
eN
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Preface to the New Edition ix
Series Editor's Introduction xxiii
Morton Schoolman
Introduction: Why Hannah Arendt? xxxvii
The Pariah and Her Shadow:
Hannah Arendt's Biography of Rahel Varnhagen
A Methodological Preamble
Rahel Levin Varnhagen's Quest for the "World" 5
The Salons as Female "Public Sphere" 14
The Rise of the Social 22
2 Jewish Politics and German "Existenz Philosophy": 35
The Sources of Hannah Arendt's Thought
vi Contents
Constructing a Homeland for a W orldless People 35
What Is "Existenz Philosophy"? 47
The Concept of the "World" in Martin Heidegger's 51
Being and Time
3 The Destruction of the Public Sphere and the Emergence of 62
Totalitarianism
Methodological and Historiographic Puzzles of Arendt's 63
Origins of Totalitarianism
Empirical-Analytical Aspects of Arendt's Theory of 69
Totalitarianism
Imperialism and the End of the "Rights of Man" 75
Imperialism and the Dilemmas of the Modem 77
Nation-State
The Politics of Memory and the Morality of 86
Historiography
The Theorist as Storyteller 91
4 The Dialogue with Martin Heidegger: Arendt's Ontology of 102
The Human Condition
The Meaning of Heidegger's Silence 102
Plurality, the World, and the Solipsism of Heidegger's 104
Ontology
Action, Narrative, and the Web of Stories 107
Aristotle, Arendt, and Heidegger 114
5 The Art of Making and Subverting Distinctions: 123
With Arendt, Contra Arendt
The Ontological and Institutional Dimensions of the 123
Public Sphere
Contents vii
The Continuing Struggle with Karl Marx 130
The Social and the Political: An Untenable Divide 138
6 From the Problem of Judgment to the Public Sphere: 172
Rethinking Hannah Arendt's Political Theory
Thinking and Judging: 173
Rereading Eichmann in Jerusalem
Judgment in Kant's Moral Philosophy and 185
Arendt's Reappropriation
The Missing Normative Foundations of Arendtian Politics 193
From Public Space to Public Sphere: Hannah Arendt and 199
Jiirgen Habermas
The Contested Public Sphere: Arendt, Habermas, and Beyond 203
Rethinking Privacy 211
Appendix: The Personal is not the Political 221
Bibliography 235
Index 249
About the Author 261

Preface to the New Edition
A t the cusp of the twenty-first century, Hannah Arendt's reputation
as one of the most important political thinkers of late modernity
has been established worldwide. Such eminence was by no means
always assured. Although a widely acclaimed political writer and public
intellectual during her lifetime, her views were always contested. Arendt
was also accused, and often, of meddling in areas like Jewish history, the
Holocaust, and American desegregation debates-to name but a few-in
which she was not a specialist. Actually, she objected to being called a
"philosopher" and described herself to Karl Jaspers, her former teacher, as
having become "something between a historian and a publicist." All this
has changed. Certainly, controversy has not ceased to accompany her even
after her death, particularly after the 1998 publication of her correspon
dence with Martin Heidegger whose student and lover she had been. Yet
Hannah Arendt has become a "classical" political philosopher and has
assumed her place alongside the male stars of the Western intellectual
canon.
The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt was written as the contem
porary Arendt renaissance was gathering momentum. My purpose in this
ix