A B S T R A C T
Hannah
Arendt: The Autonomy of the Political Reconsidered
Dana Richard Villa
Packey J. Dee Professor of Political Theory, University of
Notre Dame
Hannah Arendt's distinction between the social and the
political has received much critical comment from scholars
and readers of her work. In my paper, I examine the
reasons why Arendt is so insistent on making this
distinction, and why--in fact--it may be of value. I
also look at a seeming parallel between her assertion of
the relative autonomy of politics, and another (more
notorious) assertion of the 'autonomy of the political,'
namely, Carl Schmitt's. Is Arendt's project somehow
Schmittian in nature? I argue that it is not.
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