Hannah Arendt and the Boundaries of the Public Sphere

The world has changed markedly in the half a century since Hannah Arendt last inserted a blank piece of paper into her typewriter and typed the word "Judgment. " Many new phenomena and changes have occurred on the political map, in the economy and technology, and in the minds of humans since that time. Some of these changes could be predicted long before their appearance, some of them emerged unexpectedly. We do not know how Arendt would react to the changes taking place in the contemporary world. However, we are confident that she would not have stayed aside silently. She was a passionate supporter of an active political life based on both, a pluralism of opinions and agonistic debates, on the one hand, and on "acting in concert, " understanding and reconciliation between people, on the other. For Arendt only through the implementation of their essential plurality, can humans access and preserve their common world -which she understands as something "that is shared by many people, lies between them, separates and links them, showing itself differently to each and comprehensible. " 1 Arendt was sure that our common world can exist "only to the extent that many people can talk about it and exchange their opinions and perspectives with one another, over against one another. Only in the freedom of our speaking with one another does the world, as that about which we speak, emerge in its objectivity and visibility from all sides. " 2

Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Public sphere · Sociology · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy

• Reading Arendt in the Russian Context

  Open Access•Alexei Gloukhov•Sotsiologicheskoe Obozrenie /…•2019

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