Dana Villa - Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt.pdf - D - WMatrixie

DANA R. VILLA

Introduction: the development of Arendt’s

political thought

Widely recognized as one of the most original and inﬂuential political think-

ers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt remains an elusive ﬁgure. She

never wrote a systematic political philosophy in the mode of Thomas

Hobbes or John Rawls, and the books she did write are extremely diverse in

topic, covering totalitarianism, the place of political action in human life, the

trial of Adolf Eichmann, the meaning of the modern revolutionary tradition,

the nature of political freedom and authority, and the faculties which make

up “the life of the mind.” These works are not constructed upon a single

argument, diligently unfolded, or upon a linear narrative. Rather, they are

grounded upon a series of striking conceptual distinctions – between tyranny

and totalitarianism; action, labor, and work; political revolution and strug-

gles for liberation; thinking, willing, and judging – which Arendt elaborates

and weaves into complex thematic strands. The interconnections between

the strands are sometimes left to the reader. Thus, it is no surprise that new-

comers to her work are often bafﬂed by how the pieces ﬁt together (not only

from book to book, but often within a single volume). They cannot help

wondering whether there is, in fact, a consistent perspective behind her

varied reﬂections on the nature of political evil, the glories of political

action, and the fragility of civilized society (the “human artiﬁce”) in the face

of mounting natural, technological, and political pressure. The situation is

not helped by the fact that many commentators on Arendt have tended to

seize upon one strand of her oeuvre , elevating her reﬂections on political

action, or her theory of totalitarianism, to a position of unquestioned pre-

eminence.

This chapter attempts a brief overview of the development and place of

Arendt’s political thought, highlighting the fears which animated her think-

ing as well as situating her with regard to some of the major ﬁgures in the

Western tradition of political philosophy. My concern throughout is to give

the reader some sense of the “hidden continent of thought” (to use Margaret

Canovan’s felicitous image) that underlies the various stops on Arendt’s

Dana Villa - Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt.pdf