Hannah Arendt and the politics of friendship / Jon Nixon.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"For Hannah Arendt, friendship had political relevance and importance. The essence of friendship, she believed, consisted in discourse, and it is only through discourse, she argued, that the world is rendered humane. This book explores some of the key ideas in Hannah Arendt's work through a study of four lifelong friendships -- with Heinrich Blücher, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Mary McCarthy. The book draws on correspondence from both sides, illuminating our understanding of the social contexts within which Arendt's thinking developed and was clarified. It offers a cultural history of ideas: shedding light on two core ideas in Arendt -- of 'plurality' and 'promise', and on how those particular ideas emerged through a particular set of relationships, at a significant moment in the history of the West. This book offers an original and accessible 'way in' to Arendt's work for students and scholars of politics, philosophy, intellectual history and literature"--Provided by publisher

Print version record.

Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Series page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- For Pauline -- Epigraph -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- A Note to the Reader -- Abbreviations -- 1 A Child of the Time -- Between the wars -- 'Goodbye to philosophy' -- Continuities across boundaries -- Eichmann and evil -- 2 Friendship and Plurality -- Total domination -- Massification and atomisation -- Dead ends and cul-de-sacs -- The diaspora of friendship -- 3 Friendship as Promise -- New beginnings -- 'Isolated islands' -- 'Truthful dialogue' -- The fragility of friendship -- 4 Arendt and Heidegger: The Struggle for Recognition -- Unavoidable questions -- Shared passion -- Nazi years -- 'Heidegger the fox' -- Troubled reunions -- A kind of settlement -- 5 Arendt and Jaspers: Becoming Worldly -- Life before Arendt -- From mentor to friend -- Old Europe -- Assimilation and identity -- Pax Americana -- Footprints and legacies -- 6 Arendt and McCarthy: Becoming Ourselves -- The past in the present -- Complicated complementarities -- 'Workmanlike friendship' -- Strength and fragility -- Common sense -- Duty beyond death -- 7 Arendt and Blücher: Flourishing Together -- Eros and philia -- Thinking together -- Doing philosophy -- Politics in action -- Root and branch -- Life after Blücher -- 8 The Hermeneutics of Friendship -- Friendship as practice -- Thinking and willing -- 'Enlargement of the mind' -- Dialogue among equals -- 9 The Republic of Friendship -- The public realm -- The erosion of the political -- 'Living in truth' -- Common ground -- EPILOGUE A Woman of the World -- APPENDIX Chronology of Arendt's Life and Works -- Bibliography -- Index.

English.

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