Abstract

October fourteenth of this year marks the centenary of Hannah Arendt’s birth. This provides occasion to reflect on the political and philosophical thought of one who, due to her concerted effort to understand the political terrain of her time “without banisters”, can be characterized as one of the most original and insightful political theorists of the twentieth century. The unorthodox and even elusive character of her claims has often made them seem contradictory, as if incapable of forming a coherent political theory. This has made for a burgeoning literature and lively debates on, for instance, how to understand some of her central categories such as action, freedom, power, and authority; how to read her work, that is, whether through the lens of her political theory as laid out in The Human Condition or through the lens of her examination of the elements that crystallized into totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism; and whether her existential politics contains elements of decisionism, or, rather, her insistence on plurality and speech offers a version of participatory politics.