Thoughts on the Origins of Politics in Hannah Arendt

Abstract

Hannah Arendt’s interest in the phenomenon of politics runs transversally through both her thought and her work. In an entry in her Denktagebuch 1950-1973 (2018), Arendt reflects on the fact that political philosophy has its origin, for the Western philosophical tradition, between the decline of the polis and Plato’s response to the corruption of politics. On the contrary, if we want to talk about the origin of politics itself, we must go back, according to Arendt’s genealogy, to a time more closely linked to mythological narrative than to historical narrative: the Trojan War. Arendt’s relationship to Hellenic thought is essential to understanding the programmatic core of her thought and work, mainly in the way in which she combines these ideas with other traditions, such as Aristotelianism, republicanism, and her Germanic and Hebrew heritage. For this reason, we present, together with Roberto Esposito, a journey through the ideas that make up the origin of politics for Arendt’s phenomenology, forming a triangle between Troy, Athens, and Rome. Furthermore, we will show the limits of this interpretation when seen in dialogue with another fundamental author for understanding political philosophy in the 20th century, Simone Weil. Without knowing one another, both authors seem to complement each other. The aim of all this is to make visible the importance of the Roman world in Arendt’s thought.