Arendt and Heidegger

Abstract

This text aims to defend Arendt against her devotees. The author argues that Arendt's sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action has been covered over and domesticated by admirers who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical/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. The author makes a case for Arendt as the postmodern or post-metaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche'a exposition of the death of God. After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, the book 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.