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HANNAH ARENDT IS CELEBRATED AS ONE OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS of our time. But is such a celebration truly legitimate? Indeed, as surprising and as paradoxical as it may seem, Hannah Arendt has always demonstrated a strong opposition to political philosophy and to its tradition of thought. Despite almost unanimous recognition of Arendt, the idiom "political philosophy"-and the institutions that are born of it-are highly problematic. For the author of The Human Condition, under the guise of a supposedly happy alliance between the substantive and the qualifier, "political philosophy" willingly conceals a conflict between philosophy and politics and bears the threat of the sovereignty of one over the other. This conflict is extremely profound since it represents opposition not only between two academic disciplines but between two modes of existence that seek to establish a hierarchy-excellence being attributed to one of them, in this case, the bios theorètikos at the expense of the biospoliticos.
Little surprise, then, that a philosopher critical of the concept of sovereignty attacks the general configuration of political philosophy. Indeed, Arendt is aware of the necessity of rejecting the model of competence in the political realm in order to better recognize the inherent political capacity of all; her resolve is to struggle against the government of philosophers, of "those who know over those who do not know." In order to fully comprehend the "contra political philosophy" that Arendt puts forth, what better vantage point than that of her critical interpretation of Plato's thought? Did the author of the Republic not edify or institute political philosophy away from and even against the polis?
In a letter dated May 8,1954, in which she attempts to explain to Heidegger the broad outline of her work, Arendt writes,
Starting with the parable of the cave (and your interpretation of it), a representation of the traditional relationship between philosophy and politics, [we see] actually the attitude of Plato and Aristotle toward the polis as the basis of all political theories. (It seems to me decisive that Plato makes the agathon [the good] the highest idea-and not the lotion [the beautiful]-for political reasons) (Hannah Arendt-Martin Heidegger letter, 1925-1975).
Two years later, July 1, 1956, in a letter to Karl Jaspers, Arendt once again speaks of Plato's position: