PURIFICATION OF POLITICAL SPHERE: RETHINKING HANNAH ARENDT

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) tried to explain the concepts such as liberty, equality, violence, revolution, totalitarianism, mass society and politics, by looking at Vita Activa (active life), which she described as human condition. In trying to understand these concepts, the influence of her time and her identities is also strong. A philosopher who had seen the Second World War, Arendt tried to understand how the real political action, by questioning the cause of the demolition of the West during this period as an educated women and Jews living in Germany. Criticizing the great narratives of modern times (including liberalism and Marxism) and searching for the foundations of her philosophy of politics in Ancient Greece she re-defined the distinction between public and private sphere. She imagines a public sphere in which freedom is realized and where equal individuals can speak and agree with their differences. This public sphere is the domain of political action. The aim of this study is to understand the political conception that underlies Hannah Arendt’s intellectual action. More specifically, it is aimed to remind the definition of politics which Arendt made, in order to be able to appreciate the concept of political action in our time. In this study, by giving completely the place to her intellectual action, Arendt will be “secularized” in her own words; in other words “to be emancipated”