The Totalitarian Horizon: Immanentism and our Tradition of Political Philosophy in Hannah Arendt

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide an interpretation of Hannah Arendt's understanding of totalitarianism. Although Arendt conceives totalitarianism as a specific political regime, my claim is that it is also possible to find a broder conception of totalitarianism in Arendt's work if we consider her critical approach to the tradition of political philosophy. According to Arendt, the western tradition of political philosophy has brought forth nothing but different types of government that are only concerned with subjecting human action and thus the contingency of human affairs. Thereby, the philosophical tradition understands human affairs qua work and in doing so hinders and obstructs the deployment of human plurality. Hence, my aim in this paper is to reflect upon the underground stream that according to Arendt crystallized both in the Nazi Germany and in the USSR. To accomplish this task, I take into account the notion of “immanentism” developed by Jean-Luc Nancy in The inoperative Community.