Von Der Menschlichkeit in Finsteren Zeiten: Gedanken Zu Lessing

by Hannah Arendt

In her 1959 speech "On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing," Hannah Arendt explores how individuals can preserve their humanity when the "public realm" has been obscured by political catastrophe or social conformity. Using Gotthold Ephraim Lessing as her model, she argues that true humanity is found not in abstract universal truths, but in friendship and the courage to think for oneself (Selbstdenken).

Genres: Philosophy

Paperback

Published January 1, 1960

About the author

Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).

Reviews

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Nessuna filosofia, nessuna analisi, nessun aforisma, per quanto profondo, può avere un’intensità e una pienezza di senso paragonabili a quelle di una storia ben raccontata." (p. 79)

[Bobparr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questa edizione è differente da altre in inglese, dove sono presenti più saggi. Qui troviamo "solo" un discorso del 1959, relativo al conferimento del premio Lessing (Gotthold Lessing, colui a cui viene attribuita la frase "La vita è troppo breve per bere del vino cattivo" e già per questo è un mio eroe).

Una bella e chiara introduzione di Laura Boella precede un densissimo excursus nel pensiero della Arendt e nel pensiero di Lessing (tra i tanti film che potebbero sostenere la lettura, Il labirinto del silenzio, ambientato nel 1958 e seguenti, da' una idea dei tempi in cui la Arendt parla)

Alla fine, in questo piccolo saggio - non oso immaginare lo sbigottimento degli uditori in occasione della sua esposizione - si trovano tanti temi di Lessing, decisamente interessanti e che meritano di essere approfonditi - gia' ordinato Nathan il saggio - e tanti temi della Arendt, calati nel suo difficile e laborioso quotidiano. Una lettura che se fatta con attenzione da' molte soddisfazioni.

[seth]

Tyrone Palmer…..