Actas Das Jornadas de Jovens Investigadores de Filosofia (
2010)
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Abstract
Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism contains a disquieting and devastating diagnosis about our world. This paper aims to discuss the political- philosophical assumptions underlying the crisis identified by Arendt in her work. It will center its attention on Arendt’s book on Imperialism and her view of the nation- state.
An indirect and genetic comprehension path will be drawn, starting with the
Arendtian criticism regarding the human rights concept in effect to date, in a kind of prolegomenon both to Arendt’s assessment of Human Rights and to her own proposal of a human right. It will be contended that the individual was freed from his humanness viewed as a universal way of being by way of the nation-state and the Imperialism that followed it. It will be shown that, as a result of this emancipatory movement, the positivity of
right was abrogated, simultaneously abrogating the individual’s bond to the human community, thus constituting humanness as a problem.