Hannah Arendt
Pour Arendt, la politique consiste à agir ensemble entre égaux dans l’espace public, et le pire mal est souvent commis par des gens ordinaires qui ont cessé de penser.
Repères
Totalitarisme, banalité du mal et vita activa : la politique comme agir ensemble dans la pluralité.
Idées clés
- Banalité du mal
- Natalité
- Vita activa
- Pluralité
Maîtres: Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger
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Influence
Influences reçues de 7
Aristote
influencé par ✓
Arendt drew on Aristotle’s bios politikos and his distinction of praxis from poiesis in separating action from work and labour (The Human Condition, 1958). H. Arendt, The Human Condition (1958); SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Aristote › 384–322 av. J.-C.
Augustin d’Hippone
influencé par ✓
Arendt wrote a dissertation on Augustine’s concept of love (1929) and derived natality from his ‘that there be a beginning, man was created’ (The Human Condition, 1958). H. Arendt, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1929); The Human Condition (1958); Augustine, De civitate Dei XII; SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Augustin d’Hippone › 354–430
Emmanuel Kant
influencé par ✓
Arendt read Kant’s judgement of taste, with its ‘enlarged mentality’, as the model of political judgement (Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, given 1970, publ. 1982). H. Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. R. Beiner (1982); I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790); SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Emmanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Edmund Burke
influencé par ✓
Arendt took up Burke’s argument for inherited ‘rights of Englishmen’ against abstract human rights, finding it confirmed by the rightless stateless (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951). H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951); E. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Edmund Burke › 1729–1797
Rosa Luxemburg
influencé par
Arendt praised Luxemburg’s trust in the spontaneous action of the masses and her early criticism of the Bolsheviks (review of Nettl, 1966; ‘Rosa Luxemburg: 1871–1919’, 1968). H. Arendt, “A Heroine of Revolution”, review of J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, New York Review of Books (1966); repr. as “Rosa Luxemburg: 1871–1919”, in Men in Dark Times (1968)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Rosa Luxemburg › 1871–1919
Karl Jaspers élève de
élève de ✓
Arendt took her doctorate under Jaspers in Heidelberg in 1928 with Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (printed 1929); their correspondence continued until his death. H. Arendt & K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel 1926–1969 (1985); E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1982)
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Walter Benjamin
influencé par ✓
Arendt edited Benjamin’s Illuminations (1968) and in her introduction described his thinking as ‘pearl diving’ that breaks fragments of thought from the past. H. Arendt, “Walter Benjamin: 1892–1940”, introduction to W. Benjamin, Illuminations (1968); repr. in Men in Dark Times (1968)
Walter Benjamin › 1892–1940
A influencé 9
Jürgen Habermas
a influencé ✓
Habermas took up Arendt’s communicative concept of power as the ability to act in concert but faulted its neglect of strategic action (‘Hannah Arendts Begriff der Macht’, 1976). J. Habermas, “Hannah Arendts Begriff der Macht” (1976), in Philosophisch-politische Profile (1981); Faktizität und Geltung (1992); SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026
Giorgio Agamben
a influencé ✓
Agamben drew on Arendt’s analysis of the camps and stateless refugees stripped of rights (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951) for his figure of bare life (Homo Sacer, 1995). G. Agamben, Homo sacer (1995); Mezzi senza fine (1996); H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951); SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Giorgio Agamben › né(e) en 1942
Adriana Cavarero
a influencé
Cavarero turned Arendt’s distinction between what and who someone is into a philosophy of the narratable self (Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti, 1997). A. Cavarero, Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti (1997; Eng. Relating Narratives, 2000); H. Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Adriana Cavarero › né(e) en 1947
Judith Butler
a influencé
Butler took up Arendt’s right to have rights (Who Sings the Nation-State?, with Spivak, 2007) and space of appearance (Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, 2015). J. Butler and G. C. Spivak, Who Sings the Nation-State? (2007); J. Butler, Parting Ways (2012); Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015); SEP “Hannah Arendt”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Judith Butler › né(e) en 1956
Achille Mbembe
a influencé ✓
In “Necropolitics” (2003) Mbembe drew, alongside Foucault’s biopower, on Arendt’s analysis of race, colonial rule and the camps in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) to describe the colony as the place where sovereignty is exercised as the right to kill. A. Mbembe, “Necropolitics”, Public Culture 15:1 (2003), 11–40
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Achille Mbembe › né(e) en 1957
Rahel Jaeggi
a influencé
In Welt und Person (1997), based on her master’s thesis, Jaeggi examined the anthropological background of Arendt’s social critique to use it for analysing social pathologies. R. Jaeggi, Welt und Person. Zum anthropologischen Hintergrund der Gesellschaftskritik Hannah Arendts (1997)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Rahel Jaeggi › né(e) en 1966
Tout afficher (9)Afficher moins
Mahmood Mamdani
a influencé
Mamdani read the Rwandan genocide with Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, placing it in a history of colonial genocide that began with settlers’ violence against natives, such as the genocide of the Herero. M. Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers (2001), ch. 1
Attestation: brouillon IA
Mahmood Mamdani › né(e) en 1946
Seyla Benhabib
a influencé
Benhabib drew on Arendt’s ‘enlarged mentality’, taken from Kant’s Critique of Judgement, for her interactive universalism (Situating the Self, 1992) and read Arendt as a ‘reluctant modernist’ (1996). S. Benhabib, Situating the Self (1992); The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (1996); H. Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (1982)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Seyla Benhabib › né(e) en 1950
Jason Stanley
a influencé
Stanley drew on Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism for fascist ‘unreality’, where propaganda and conspiracy erode a shared sense of fact (How Fascism Works, 2018). J. Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), “Unreality”; H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Jason Stanley › né(e) en 1969
Critique
Critiques reçues de 1
Iris Marion Young
critiqué par
Young took up Arendt’s distinction between guilt and political responsibility but tied responsibility to participation in unjust structures, not to membership in a polity (Responsibility for Justice, 2011). I. M. Young, Responsibility for Justice (2011), ch. 3 “Guilt versus Responsibility: A Reading and Partial Critique of Hannah Arendt”; H. Arendt, “Collective Responsibility” (1968)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Iris Marion Young › 1949–2006
Critiques adressées à 5
Platon
a critiqué
Arendt held that Plato’s philosopher-ruler replaced action among equals with the model of making, beginning the tradition’s escape from politics into rule (The Human Condition, 1958, § 31). H. Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), § 31 “The Traditional Substitution of Making for Acting”; “What Is Authority?”, in Between Past and Future (1961)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Platon › 428–348 av. J.-C.
Arthur de Gobineau
a critiqué
Arendt analysed Gobineau as an aristocratic theorist of decline whose race-thinking, before racism proper, later became a weapon of racist politics (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951, ch. 6). H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), part II, ch. 6 “Race-Thinking before Racism”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Arthur de Gobineau › 1816–1882
Karl Marx
a critiqué
Arendt objected that Marx blurred the distinction between labour and work and, defining man as animal laborans, lost sight of action (The Human Condition, 1958, ch. III). H. Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), ch. III “Labor”; “Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought” (1953, publ. 2002)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Martin Heidegger élève de
élève de ✓
Arendt studied with Heidegger in Marburg in 1924–25, attending his lecture course on Plato’s Sophist, and then went to Jaspers in Heidelberg; their personal relationship, documented in their letters, began in Marburg. E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1982); H. Arendt & M. Heidegger, Briefe 1925 bis 1975 (1998)
a critiqué
Arendt criticised Heidegger’s Self as isolated, its being-with merely structural (‘What Is Existenz Philosophy?’, 1946), and his turn to a ‘will-not-to-will’ (The Life of the Mind, 1978). H. Arendt, “What Is Existenz Philosophy?”, Partisan Review 13 (1946); The Life of the Mind II: Willing (1978)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Frantz Fanon
a critiqué
Arendt rejected the belief, drawn from Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, that violence creates a new humanity: violence can destroy power, never create it (On Violence, 1970). H. Arendt, On Violence (1970), with her sharpest criticism aimed at Sartre’s preface; R. J. Bernstein, “Violence”, Political Concepts 3.1 (2012)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961
Œuvres
Antisémitisme, impérialisme, totalitarisme.
Travail, œuvre, action.
Un rapport sur la banalité du mal.
Penser, vouloir, juger – après Eichmann.
Position
Arendt voulait comprendre ce qui s’était passé au XXe siècle. Dans Les Origines du totalitarisme, elle retraça comment l’antisémitisme, l’impérialisme et la dissolution de la société de classes aboutirent à une forme inédite de domination fondée sur la terreur, l’idéologie et la destruction de la spontanéité humaine. Dans Condition de l’homme moderne, elle distingua le travail, l’œuvre et l’action ; seule l’action – parler et agir ensemble entre égaux, dans la pluralité – constitue le politique, et chaque naissance (la « natalité ») apporte la possibilité d’un nouveau commencement. Son rapport sur Eichmann forgea l’expression « banalité du mal » : des actes monstrueux peuvent naître de l’absence de pensée plutôt que d’une profondeur démoniaque. Arendt demeure une voix centrale de la pensée politique, indépendante de toute école. Son essai « Réflexions sur Little Rock » (1959), qui s’opposait à la déségrégation scolaire ordonnée par la justice, et sa représentation des Africains dans Les Origines du totalitarisme ont suscité des critiques soutenues (Ralph Ellison, Kathryn Gines).
Vie et contexte
Arendt naquit près de Hanovre en 1906 et grandit à Königsberg. Elle étudia auprès de Heidegger et de Husserl et passa son doctorat sous la direction de Karl Jaspers. En 1933, elle s’enfuit à Paris, fut internée en 1940 et s’échappa à New York en 1941 ; pendant des années, elle fut apatride. Elle enseigna dans diverses universités américaines et rendit compte du procès d’Eichmann pour The New Yorker.
Autres œuvres principales
- Essai sur la révolution (1963)
Apparaît dans
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- Voyage « Penser après Auschwitz » · Étape 3 sur 10
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