Abstract

My thesis bears on Hannah Arendt's theory of the political sphere. My objective is critically to assess Arendt's development of the theory from its introduction in her treatment of the self-understanding of the ancient Greek polis to its deployment in the modern context. With The Human Condition as the central text in my analysis, I consider the key philosophical-theoretical commitments surrounding the theory of the political sphere, notably Arendt's opposition of freedom to nature. I argue that problems arising in connection with Arendt's theory of the political sphere can be traced to the freedom-nature dichotomy.