Hannah Arendt and the identity crisis in philosophy

Abstract

Hannah Arendt's reception takes place mainly in the field of political philosophy, in order to interpret her as a theorist of the crises of the 20th century. However, this perspective loses sight of the theoretical presuppositions and commitments that Arendt's work assumes with the German philosophical tradition, which allow us to identify problems that have not yet been addressed in her reception. Thus, by means of a bibliographical review combined with an analysis of the author's theoretical essays, this article aims to point out a gap in Arendtian literature by verifying, on the one hand, the presence of a phenomenological structure in Hannah Arendt's texts and, on the other, connections between her themes and methods and the problem of philosophy's identity crisis. Thus, by highlighting the treatment of this problem in Hannah Arendt's work, its reception is extended beyond the realm of political philosophy.