Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


oberlin1338923400.pdf (527.99 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Political Action

Hartford, Charlie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1338923400

Abstract Details

2012, BA, Oberlin College, Politics.
In the first section, I begin with an account of action within the context of the vita activa as laid out by Arendt in The Human Condition. I then proceed to identify some of the more perplexing features of her account, and suggest that they are confounding enough to throw the coherency of what Arendt is saying into question. Taking my cue from Hanna Pitkin, I then argue that we can understand action as activity informed by thinking, by drawing upon Arendt's posthumously published work The Life of the Mind. This account, however, though illuminating with regard to some aspects of political action, will be shown to possess serious deficiencies in others. Thus, I will proceed in section two to explicate Heidegger's conception of "worldhood," and will demonstrate that Arendt's conception of "the world of appearances" in The Life of the Mind is essentially derivative of this account. I will then go on in section three to show that Arendt's conception of the "world" in The Human Condition is fundamentally a critique of Heidegger's account, and that far from being derivative, Arendt actually exposes major deficiencies in Heidegger's notion of worldhood. I will then conclude by giving an account of action as taking responsibility for the world, with the world understood as a space for action and freedom.
Harlan Wilson, PhD (Advisor)
Sonia Kruks, PhD (Advisor)
80 p.
Political Science
Political Theory; Arendt; Heidegger; Action; Political Action; Phenomenology; YMCMB; The Human Condition; Being and Time

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hartford, C. (2012). Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Political Action [Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1338923400

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hartford, Charlie. Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Political Action. 2012. Oberlin College, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1338923400.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hartford, Charlie. "Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Political Action." Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1338923400

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

oberlin1338923400
566
© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Oberlin College Honors Theses and OhioLINK.