Abstract

This dissertation explores Hannah Arendt's conception of politics as a self-contained space without dependence or recourse to universal or transcendent principles. Arendt's writings exemplify an understanding of politics as a separate space that is both completely worldly yet abundantly meaningful. This study specifically focuses on Arendt's revised dissertation Love and Saint Augustine in order to demonstrate how positioning her political theory as a reversal of Augustine illuminates the central features of her political thought. Arendt's dissertation on Augustine clarifies how she transformed Augustine's conception of the inner self of faith to a public self of politics, Augustine's otherworldly memory to a worldly political judgment and Augustine's early Christian communities to polis-like political communities constituted by citizens concerned with the common world. Arendt's writings on Augustine demonstrate how political actions, in her political theory, are not measured by eternal transcendence, instead worldly immortality is the standard for the words and deeds of the political realm. This standard of immortality allowed Arendt to maintain a conception of political space as an autonomous area whose meaning is solely determined by the human beings who share that space. The emphasis on worldly immortality places utmost importance on the political spectators who bestow meaning upon the words and deeds of the public realm. It is the judgments of the political spectators that give meaning to the actions of those in the political community. Therefore, the autonomy of Arendt's political space is only achieved by positing the political realm as a formal space where meaningfulness is supplied by the judging gaze of spectators. This formalism in Arendt's thought prevents her political theory from moving beyond the broad framework of the Western tradition. Her independent political space is only meaningful by being both highly formal and seemingly remote from contemporary political practice