Health of Public Life in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt: the relation of the public and private realms in the centuries of modernity

Journal Title: Anthropological Researches and Studies - Year 2018, Vol 8, Issue 8

Abstract

In The Human Condition (1959), which is mentioned as her opus magnum, Arendt gives a political ontology applying a phenomenological method; she blends the chronological explanation with a conceptual analysis. The axis of thought train is the private-public distinction put in a historical framework. The feminist authors warn us, that this distinction is not a neutral analytical instrument but an abstraction deduced from the reality of the antique patriarchal society. At the same time, Arendt, in other feminist interpretations is a forerunner of feminism who, in her biography written on Rahel Varnhagen, a Jewish woman of Berlin in the first half of the 19th century, created a role model of modern woman who dared to risk of entering the light of the public realm that had previously been dominated by males and, in her Berlin saloon, offered an alternative space where the women were peers of men. The pro-Arendt feminist interpreters assert, the Arendtian philosophy outlines the possibility for a no male-dominated, really democratic public realm. The political philosophy of Hannah Arendt has been flavored by a history of decline. The beginning of the modernity, in this interpretation, is the moment of derailment. During the centuries of modernity, step by step, the division lines between private and public spheres disappear. Lasting institutions, warranting the public sphere, dissolve in the never-ending procession of material production: everything becomes fluid: culture and politics change into the objects of the ever-widening cycles of consumption devouring whole reality and the intimacy, conquering and distorting the emptied public realm, creates proper constellation for totalitarian political practices

Authors and Affiliations

Gábor Kovács

Keywords

Related Articles

Risk factors for the safety of the children from transnational families (children left behind)

Objectives. The main objective of this paper is to explore the current situation with the transnational families in Bulgaria and Romania, their profile and the consequences of the transnational way of life for the childr...

"Westernization and Alienation of the State/Social Order": A Pseudo-Scientific Fairy-tale of Turkish Islamists

Idris Küçükömer (born 1925 in Giresun, dead 1987 in Istanbul) is a well-known Turkish academic, who tried to figure out the controversial character of the Left-wing movement in Turkey. His main book “The Alienation of th...

Young intimate femicide in Romania. Incidence and risk factors

Objectives. This paper presents the results of the first research made in Romania on young intimate femicide cases committed between 2011 and 2015. The study aims to identify the incidence, risk factors and the particula...

Representation of ‘family’ in indian television serials

Objectives. Effects of globalization have been limited in relation to Indian family structure and culture. Television, an important source of infotainment for most Indian households, reflects social reality with real-tim...

Health of Public Life in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt: the relation of the public and private realms in the centuries of modernity

In The Human Condition (1959), which is mentioned as her opus magnum, Arendt gives a political ontology applying a phenomenological method; she blends the chronological explanation with a conceptual analysis. The axis of...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP569021
  • DOI 10.26758/8.1.21
  • Views 84
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Gábor Kovács (2018). Health of Public Life in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt: the relation of the public and private realms in the centuries of modernity. Anthropological Researches and Studies, 8(8), 212-218. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-569021