The Plurality Dispute

In ten highly focused chapters, Juliane Rebentisch lays open Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy of plurality and discusses it within the spectrum of contemporary debates. Politics and truth, fleeing and statelessness, slavery and racism, colonialism and National Socialism, morality and education, discrimination and identity as well as capitalism and democracy are the keywords of these explorations. In these different thematic contexts and by focusing on the theme of plurality, Rebentisch makes both the coherence of Arendt’s oeuvre as well as the contradictions that run through it tangible.

The book reveals the far-reaching implications of Arendt’s work by means of precise readings and by including historical backgrounds, and mainly does so by elaborating and consistently criticising the conceptual barriers that Arendt herself set for her philosophy. For this very reason, the dispute about plurality, which is impressively argued alongside and against Hannah Arendt, proves to be an extremely fitting homage to an author whose love for the world was also evident in the contentiousness of her judgements.

»Rebentisch explores with a profound knowledge of philosophy and yet in an accessible and rhetorically outstanding manner a concept that determines today's social debates – plurality – in a critical examination of Hannah Arendt's work.« jury on the nomination for the Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse

»With great meticulousness and affection, [Rebentisch] develops a reading that manages to protect Arendt from herself, from her own prejudices and narrow-mindedness, and reveals all kinds of ambivalences.« Martin Hartmann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»[Rebentisch’s] exposition of Arendt’s theory of pluralism is clear and meritorious.« Michael Jäger, der Freitag

»With flair and accuracy [Rebentisch] looks into the tricky aspects in Arendt’s work in order to enter into ›debates with Hannah Arendt‹.« Meike Fessmann, Der Tagesspiegel

»Juliane Rebentisch’s critical re-reading of Hannah Arendt explores the astonishing topicality of a confrontational intellectual – and argues against her canonisation.« Ronald Düker, Philosophie Magazin

»a competent guide through a world of thought and its critical reception« Karl Gaulhofer, Die Presse

»In ten chapters, [Rebentisch] orbits Arendt’s horizons of thought and sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of her political philosophy in such a penetrating and profound way that, despite all the libraries that exist on Hannah Arendt’s work, the reader is constantly amazed and discovers aspects of her thought that were not really present before.« Jürgen Nielsen-Sikora, Glanz & Elend