Abstract

The manner in which Hannah Arendt entwines historical events in political philosophy is probably the most obvious evidence of the originality of her train of thought. The author of this paper proves the relationship Arendt establishes between facts and the determinants of human existence. This relationship is evident, on the one hand, in that the understanding of these determinants is shaped through facts, and, on the other, that facts are interpreted in the light of the determinants of human existence. This relationship emerged from her doctoral dissertation entitled Love and Saint Augustine and was later further developed. Arendt juxtaposes life determinants and speculative ideas whose significance she then reduces, considering them to be the source of unjustified statements concerning human nature. Thus, she valorises facts in analyses of the determinants of human life. The overtone of this line of argument is intensified by the opposition between philosophy and science, characteristic of a later period in her writings. In opposition to the events emerging from the logic of totalitarianism, Arendt sets detailed facts taken from the individual lives of those participants or witnesses in and of events. Such cannot be explained within a framework of one logic of events (absolute logic of events), although they occurred in that reality based on them. Arendt differentiates various forms in looking at facts: one’s own perception bound with life determinants and facts established through the logic of totalitarianism that destroys individual people’s lives.