The Wandering Thought of Hannah Arendt

151 Pages·2016·1.67 MB·English

by  Hans-Jörg Sigwart (auth.)

GLOBAL POLITICAL THINKERS
Series Editors: H. Behr
and F. Rösch
THE WANDERING
THOUGHT OF
HANNAH ARENDT
Hans-Jörg Sigwart
Global Political Thinkers
Series Editors
Harmut   Behr
Newcastle University
School of Geography Politics & Sociology
Newcastle ,   United Kingdom
Felix   Rösch
School of Humanities
Coventry University
Coventry ,   United Kingdom
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Hans- J örg   Sigwart
The Wandering
Thought of Hannah
Arendt
Hans - Jörg   Sigwart
Institute of Political Science
Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen, Germany
Global Political Thinkers
ISBN 978-1-137-48214-3 ISBN 978-1-137-48215-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48215-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952497
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For Marianne
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
My research on Hannah Arendt’s political thought greatly profi ted from
discussions with numerous colleagues (whom I abstain from enumerat-
ing here), but also from the cooperation with the students who attended
my seminars during the last years at the Friedrich-Alexander University
of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Technical University of Darmstadt. In
addition, I have to thank my colleagues and the doctoral students at the
Bavarian Center for Political Theory for vivid exchanges. The work on this
book was completed during my time as a Thyssen Research Fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the Central European University,
Budapest. I want to thank the group of fellows I had the chance to meet
and work with, as well as the IAS and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for
the generous support and the opportunity to conduct research in an
extraordinarily-inspiring academic environment.
vii
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Defending Politics Against Philosophy 1 1
3 The Realms of Necessity and of Utility 29
4 The Practice of Politics 4 9
5 The Epistemology of Politics 61
6 The Experiential Position of Political Theory 87
7 The Limits of Political Horizons and the Vocation
of Theoretical Wandering 119
Bibliography 1 35
Index 143
ix
A U W H
BBREVIATIONS SED FOR ORKS OF ANNAH
A
RENDT
BPF B etween Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought
DT Denktagebuch
EU Essays in Understanding 1930–1954
HC T he Human Condition
LKPP L ectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy
MDT M en in Dark Times
MTW M arx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought
OR On Revolution
OT The Origins of Totalitarianism
PAT The Problem of Action and Thought after the French Revolution
PhP P hilosophy and Politics
Th The Life of the Mind. Vol. 1: Thinking
V On Violence
W The Life of the Mind. Vol. 2: Willing
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Abstract Although Hannah Arendt refrained from explicitly investigating
meta-theoretical questions of epistemology and methodology, her writ-
ings do entail a self-refl ective sub-text on the question of “how to think”
adequately in political theory. Focusing on this sub-text, the present
study suggests an interpretation of Arendt’s work as a “wandering” type
of political theorizing . Theory is characterized by its oscillating move-
ment between the experiential positions of philosophy and politics and by
its distinctly multi-contextual perspective . In contrast to the “not of this
world” attitude of p hilosophy , Arendt’s political theory is “of this world.”
In contrast to politics, it refrains from being “at home” in any particular
part of this world and instead wanders between the multiple horizons of
the many different political worlds in time and space.
Keywords Political theory • E pistemology • M ethodology • Philosophy
• P olitics
Of all the major questions that arguably run through all of Hannah
Arendt’s writings and that connect as leading threads the rich abundance
of themes she dealt with in her various “exercises in political thought,” 1
there is one which is particularly implicit and inarticulate, that is the ques-
tion of what it actually means to engage in the intellectual practice of
“ political thought ” in the fi rst place, or more precisely: what it means to
be a “political theorist.” Although this question occupied Arendt almost
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
H.-J. Sigwart, The Wandering Thought of Hannah Arendt,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48215-0_1