Also a Philosophy of Freedom. The idea of power in the works of Hannah Arendt

Abstract

For years now as Hannah Arendt’s works have been made available they have been growing in popularity: in 2020 the Deutsche Historische Museum in Berlin devoted an exhibition to her entitled “Hannah Arendt and the 20th Century”; in 2018 her posthumously published essay “Die Freiheit, frei zu sein” (the freedom to be free) became a bestseller, and in the same year the first volumes of the critically annotated “Collected Works” appeared; in 2012 Margarethe von Trotta’s film “Hannah Arendt” made her familiar to millions of people. In what follows the concept of power will be elucidated as a key feature of Arendt’s – and indeed of Western – thinking, while showing that her understanding of the nature of power constitutes a philosophy of freedom no less radical than Rudolf Steiner’s.