Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political

Dana Villa

Published by Princeton University Press 1996

Arendt and Heidegger

The Fate of the Political

Dana Villa

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821846

Overview
Contents

About this book

Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.

Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.

Author / Editor information

Dana R. Villa is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.

Reviews

Finally a book about Arendt and Heidegger that one can read with intellectual benefit-and without embarrassment!... If there is a point to Arendt's distinction between public and private domains and her resistance to forms of indiscriminate publicity, this is surely a place to respect her teaching. Attentive to this point, Villa presents Arendt and Heidegger as thinkers and writers of the first order whose intellectual contributions must be assessed in their integrity (though, of course, not uncritically).

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PREFACE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
A NOTE TO THE READER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xv
INTRODUCTION: The Problem of Action in Arendt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: Arendt’s Theory of Political Action
CHAPTER 1. Arendt, Aristotle, and Action Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
CHAPTER 2. Thinking Action against the Tradition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
CHAPTER 3. Arendt, Nietzsche, and the “Aestheticization” of Political Action Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
PART II: Arendt and Heidegger
CHAPTER 4. The Heideggerian Roots of Arendt’s Political Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
CHAPTER 5. Groundless Action, Groundless Judgment: Politics after Metaphysics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
CHAPTER 6. The Critique of Modernity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
PART III: The Critique of Heidegger’s Philosophical Politics
CHAPTER 7. Arendt, Heidegger, and the Oblivion of Praxis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
CHAPTER 8. Heidegger, Poixsis, and Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323

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