The deconstruction of the concept of political philosophy in Hannah Arendt’s thinking

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Hannah Arendt deconstructs —or, as she says, dismantles—one fundamental assumption of the political and philosophical Western tradition: to believe in philosophy as a tool to solve political challenges. Arendt neither formulates a new normative political theory that may eventually be applicable in practice, nor does she regret the distance between philosophy and politics as if such a gap were a thinking flaw rather than a virtue of thought. Still, she seems to suggest that in political affairs no definite answers and solutions can be expected from promising theories elaborated by philosophers.