Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: Philosophy, Modernity, and Education

Product description Review A highly informative and innovative journey through complex relations between philosophy and politics, where the density of philosophical argument is interwoven with accounts on the difficult relations between Arendt and Heidegger: two eminent thinkers who took dramatically different positions against the most tragic challenge of the twentieth century. Against this background, Paulina Sosnowska traces the transformations of the "pedagogical promise" of philosophy, from that of freedom in ancient paideia, through individuality in modern Bildung, to autonomy in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. Hannah Arendt, as "being faithful and unfaithful" to Heidegger, initiates a new version of that promise. Convincingly interpreted as foretelling Foucault's and Agamben's critique of biopolitics, she calls for critique and thinking as disruptive to metaphysical and political totality. Weak as it appears to be, "thinking has an immanent educational and ethical power, even if it does not have an immediate impact on social reality" - a message that must be read as significant in the time when temptations to totalitarianism re-emerge globally.Paulina Sosnowka's book Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: Philosophy, Modernity and Education is a promise of thinking "from this world." With interpretative sensitivity, Arendt's relationship to Heidegger is systematically elaborated and reflected in its stance toward the educational-philosophical tradition. This is a book that reorients the educational mission of philosophy; it is undoubtedly a major academic achievement.Paulina Sosnowska's Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Philosophy, Modernity, and Education is an important and intellectually stimulating contribution to the understanding of the philosophy of education. Sosnowska brilliantly shows the importance of Arendt's fundamental understanding of the unpredictability and irreversibility of human action, which encompasses the notion of Bildung. By unearthing the ontological implications of education, the question of the philosophy of education becomes a question of a new beginning. If archein means to start, to lead, or even to govern, then we can say with Heidegger and Arendt that this is not only the beginning, arché, but also the primordial sense of control that flows from the beginning and is influenced by the power of the source (Quellkraft) which forms arché and stimulates us with our (self)understanding (Sichverstehen) and acting (prattein). Sosnowska's work on Heidegger and Arendt helps us understand what awaits thinking among the ruins and remains of broken promises made in the name of education by philosophy. Indeed, we are left to wonder what philosophy would have to become to dare any more such promises. About the Author Paulina Sosnowska is assistant professor at Warsaw University.