A3 Book section, Chapters in research books
The (Meta)politics of Thinking : On Arendt and the Greeks (2021)

Backman, J. (2021). The (Meta)politics of Thinking : On Arendt and the Greeks. In K. L. Larsen, & P. R. Gilbert (Eds.), Phenomenological Interpretations of Ancient Philosophy (pp. 260-282). Brill. Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology, 20. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004446779_011

JYU authors or editors

Backman, Jussi

Publication details

All authors or editors: Backman, Jussi

Parent publication: Phenomenological Interpretations of Ancient Philosophy

Parent publication editors: Larsen, Kristian Larsen; Gilbert, Pål Rykkja

ISBN: 978-90-04-44676-2

eISBN: 978-90-04-44677-9

Journal or series: Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology

ISSN: 1875-2470

Publication year: 2021

Publication date: 29/04/2021

Number in series: 20

Pages range: 260-282

Publisher: Brill

Publication country: Netherlands

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004446779_011

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access:

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/75413

Abstract

In this chapter, Jussi Backman approaches Hannah Arendt’s readings of ancient philosophy by setting out from her perspective on the intellectual, political, and moral crisis characterizing Western societies in the twentieth century, a crisis to which the rise of totalitarianism bears witness. To Arendt, the political catastrophes haunting the twentieth century have roots in a tradition of political philosophy reaching back to the Greek beginnings of philosophy. Two principal features of Arendt’s exchange with the ancients are highlighted. The first is her account, in The Human Condition (1958), of the profound transformation of the Greek perceptions of political life initiated by Plato, the founder of the Western tradition of political philosophy; this transformation, according to Arendt, leads to an instrumentalization of politics as a means toward a higher end. The second feature is Arendt’s distinction, in her unfinished Life of the Mind (1977–8), between three different points of departure for thinking discovered by ancient philosophy—wonder, fear, and conscience—and three different outcomes of thinking—contemplation, willing, and judging. Backman argues that what connects these two interpretations of ancient philosophy is an attempt to rethink and rearticulate the complex relationship between thinking and action, between the reflective vita contemplativa and the world-oriented vita activa.

Keywords: antiquity; philosophy; ancient philosophy; social philosophy; political philosophy; political crises

Free keywords: Arendt, Hannah

Fields of science: