Hannah Arendt: Between Ideologies

Rebecca Dew
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INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY
SERIES EDITOR: GARY BROWNING

Hannah Arendt
Between Ideologies

Rebecca Dew
International Political Theory

Series Editor
Gary Browning
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
The Palgrave International Political Theory Series provides students and
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 Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.

Hannah Arendt
Between Ideologies
Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.
Florida Legislature, USA

ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)

International Political Theory
ISBN 978-3-030-45880-5 ISBN 978-3-030-45881-2 (eBook)
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 Preface

Hannah Arendt is a figure frequently studied and, quite frankly,

misunderstood. To many if not most, Arendt’s thought is associated with
the work and life of her first mentor, Martin Heidegger. Closely following
this recognition is an appreciation of the philosophical extensiveness of her
The Human Condition and the timeless appeal of Arendt’s The Origins of
Totalitarianism. I do not deny the significance of either of these works; I
do protest the attitude a few of those who have read them assume.
My initial introduction to Arendt began with a deep dive into Origins
and, after persevering through wave upon wave of that spirited volume,
an eager effort to read everything even remotely related to her I could
get my hands on. It was only then that I realised what readers of the
present volume will soon discover: A curious gap in the literature suggests
a powerful and prolonged influence in connection, not with Heidegger,
but with Arendt’s second mentor, the existentialist Karl Jaspers.
In this book, I explore this gap in the literature as it now exists as to the
extent of Jaspers’s influence upon the development of Arendt’s thought.
My approach is informed by the emphasis upon linguistic specificity and
contextual awareness advanced by the Cambridge School and an aware-
ness of exploratory depths which a project of this extent entails.
Hannah Arendt - Between Ideologies charts the development of German-
American political theorist Hannah Arendt’s thought as informed by those
philosophers whom she read and with whom she related. Prominent among
these are existentialists who have informed philosophical and political

v
vi PREFACE

awareness from then on. The focus of this book then becomes Arendt’s
convergence with and departures from these, leading to what I classify as
her atypicality as an existentialist.
There are three observations that can be made as to the defining
attributes of Arendt’s approach, informed by Jaspers, towards a practical
existentialism. These are: realistic and specific experiential validity; honest
and open communicability; and direct and frequent transparency in refer-
entiality and relation to others, both in terms of language and intention.
Among my most original claims about Arendt’s quasi-existentialism: An
action is significant to the extent that it is recognized; it is best recog-
nized when it is longest discussed and remembered; and it is best remem-
bered when it is reliably recorded. Part and parcel with any notion of
enduring existential significance is the willingness to relinquish its freedom
of undetermined content to the security of an abiding structure. Arendt’s
atypicality, as such, is in departure from Heidegger and is also a point of
connectivity she shares with Jaspers.
My claim is that it is not in the primacy of the present (the focus of
the unthinking hedonist or the privatized capitalist) or the primacy of the
future (in which Marxism, Hegelianism and indeed totalitarianism locate
their idealization), but rather in the primacy of the past, a past unfettered
by those elements of the tradition that have been misapplied and misinter-
preted by many in the gamut of “professional thinkers” Arendt disassoci-
ates herself from,1 from which an approach to the answer of the question
of Being can begin. That is, it is not modernity which Arendt critiques
as a time period or even as a political reality that is the issue, so much
as modernity in relation to tradition. In conclusion, it is claimed that if
Arendt defines modern existentialism as “the rebellion of the philosopher
against philosophy,”2 Arendt is an inverted existentialist—for she prefers
to rebel against the philosopher.

1 Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Thinking (London: Secker & Warburg, 1978),
3, 5, 53; Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Willing (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1978), 33, 195, 198.
2 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New
York: Viking Press, 1968), 8.
 PREFACE vii

Thus, this book strives to unearth Arendt’s approach to the ideological

developments of modernity while disturbing assumptions that have been
applied, mistakenly and arguably, ideologically, to her.

Florida Legislature, USA Rebecca Dew, Ph.D.

 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the faculty and staff at the University of Queensland
in Brisbane, Australia, particularly those placed at the School of Polit-
ical Science and International Studies and the School of Historical and
Philosophical Inquiry during my time researching there. With gratitude I
acknowledge that much of the time devoted to this work was supported
by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
A special thanks to my valued advisors, professors, and colleagues Dr.
David Martin Jones, Dr. Marguerite La Caze, and, for a time, Dr. Cathy
Curtis and Dr. Geoff Dow.
To my parents, brother, sisters, and fellow believers: I owe you many
happy days, profound encouragement, and much respite, without which
a work such as this cannot be brought to be.

ix
 Contents

1 The Absent Arendt 1

2 Arendt Reading Aristotle 35

3 Arendt Reading Kant 53

4 Arendt Relating to Karl Jaspers 81

5 Arendt Thinking Through Heidegger 109

6 Arendt Along with the Existentialists 141

7 Arendt as Atypical 167

8 Arendt in Anticipation 185

Index 211

xi
 CHAPTER 1

The Absent Arendt

Tracing the development of modern philosophical history from the pen

of a personage whose writings have often been misunderstood is not an
easy task. It is, however, the task of this book. In this book, existentialism
as a modern attempt at meaning will be examined—a supranational dia-
logue involving multiple threads and arriving, in its French, German and
now American materializations at remarkable conclusions. The exchange
of ideas in this conversation is transatlantic and in this sense comparative,
affecting the development of ideas in countries touched by the intellects
of Germany, France and the United States. The approach this volume
takes is to enter into a discussion of modern existentialism and its post-
modern aftereffects along a path that first requires understanding the
ideas its thinkers put into words. To do so, however, the contributions
of a thinker who has become a premier figure in intellectual assessments
of the political and the international will need to be explored.
Hannah Arendt is the modern and American segue for this incisive sur-
vey of existentialist thought. Such a survey is best undertaken, however,
with awareness of what this thinker did and did not profess—and of how
she has and has not been accurately represented. In order to investigate
Arendt’s criticisms of modern ideology and her contributions to existen-
tialist thought, in order to better understand her approach to philosophi-
cal awareness and political practice, it is necessary to distinguish between
what was written by her and what has been said about her. Arendt’s work
presents a contextualized and internationally aware account of modernity;
Arendt located her work specifically in political terms and went so far as

© The Author(s) 2020 1

R. Dew, Hannah Arendt, International Political Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45881-2_1
2 R. DEW

to associate modernity with a “revival of political thought”.1 As such, she

has been noted among the most influential philosophers of the twentieth
century2 and remains of peculiar relevance to understanding the progres-
sion of existentialist thought and its bearing to pervasive ideologies in
senses political, contextual and topical. Nevertheless, Arendt did express
less-than-favourable assessments of what modern intellectual, technologi-
cal, and political revolutions have to offer.
Modernity, for Arendt, is ideological. The social atomization of moder-
nity has been reflected philosophically in the existentialist attempt to
reassert the individual in defiance of mass society. Arendt’s mentors
Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, philosophers of the existential vari-
ety, arrived at different interpretations in their respective philosophies of
Being. Jaspers’s epochal consciousness hinged upon the axial period of
history, which he defines as central to the creation of human myth, mean-
ing and cultural awareness As Heidegger would have it, “inquiry must
begin from the ‘existentiell’ (concrete, specific, local) sense we have of
ourselves as caught up in the midst of a practical world”3 ; it is this experi-
ential reality which Heidegger refers to as life-world. In conversation with
these voices, Arendt’s work can be seen as a further extension of exis-
tentialism, albeit atypical in its approach to tradition and its embrace of
human possibility in the context of political community.
In political terms, modernity is often associated with the rise of the
nation-state, although the conceptualization of modernity lends itself
rather too easily to broad sociological connotations. For Arendt, the
political significance of modernity commences with the eighteenth-
century French and American Revolutions concomitant with the rise of
modern democracy. Philosophically, Arendt associates modernity with
thinkers such as Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche. Modernity,
in the creation of a secular mass society, has produced the existentialist
quest and ushered in postmodernity. Given the span of Arendt’s life
(1906–1975), modernity will be interpreted here as referring to the early
twentieth century onwards.
The formulation of ideology—first coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy
and coming into formal existence with the French Revolution—is a dis-
tinctly modern phenomenon. “Since the mid-nineteenth century, the
term ideology has been made so capacious … it has become variously
a system of ideas, a zeitgeist of an epoch, a cultural digest”.4 However,
Arendt’s critique of modernity locates ideology in terms that are primar-
ily philosophical and cultural, and that is where my use of the term will
 1 THE ABSENT ARENDT 3

reside. Although Arendt displays some support for liberal ideology in her
advocacy of democratic pluralism in line with Aristotle’s harmony of polit-
ical voices,5 yet the ideological developments of modernity remain highly
problematic. Modernity is a problem in terms of its anti-tradition, its sec-
ularism, its tendency towards the violent in its exaltation of activity and
its untethered need for progress and change. These features are as much
a product of modern ideological developments as they render modern
society susceptible to new waves of ideological persuasion.
What makes Arendt’s existentialism significant is the extent to which
she follows Karl Jaspers in approaching philosophy not only as an intel-
lectual engagement but as an experiential reality to be embarked on with
courage. This is not the approach that Heidegger would take, although it
may suggest resonances with existentialism of a French variety, as will be
explored in Chapter 6. This is only one regard suggesting Arendt’s atyp-
ical existentialism stands head-and-shoulders above the rest, approach-
ing experience as a lived and engaged-in reality, an enterprise far more
invested than the thinking detachment of Heidegger, far more connected
than the passionate rebellion of Camus, and far more committed than the
disenchanted pessimism of Sartre.
This is to say that modernity, as Arendt sees it through the glass of
her atypical existentialism, is problematic. The bureaucratized secularity
of modern society and the emotional effects of modernity correlate to the
philosophical developments of existentialist thought Arendt encountered.
Following these developments, theorists such as Lyotard6 have identi-
fied the ideological developments of our current time as postmodern,
a term he defines in line with increasing awareness of the understand-
ings of Enlightenment rationalism as simplistic and recognition of the
need for philosophical, cultural and socio-political contributions external
to modernity. Corresponding to the acknowledged limitations of indi-
vidual subjectivity, the awareness of the emotional deficits engendered
by “mass society”7 indicate pronounced similarities between Arendt’s
critique of modernity and the postmodern realization of the problems
thereof. This book is at once an engagement with these problems and
a reflective response through the words of Arendt. Gaining an under-
standing of Arendt’s contribution to existentialist thought in historical
and philosophical terms and her criticisms of the ideological effects of
modernity follow hand in hand.
Arendt criticized the ideology of modernity as decadent; modernity,
especially in its secular ideological forms, is rife with uncertainty and
4 R. DEW

presents a future that can only be categorized as doubtful. In light of this,

the existential quest for human meaning and human value is frustrated, a
frustration with which Arendt engages in her postulate of political action8
and vindication of human value.9 In contrast to the onset of an increas-
ingly socialized and bureaucratized modernity, Arendt advocated polit-
ical activity as the foremost public expression of the free adult. In this
combination of philosophical thought with political activity, Arendt was
willing to suffer professional ostracism and even political exile during the
course of the Nazi rise to power. It comes as no surprise that Arendt con-
sidered modernity’s ideological developments highly problematic in their
tendency towards individual dehumanization and social alienation.
Arendt’s life and time were coloured by her distinctive identity as Jew-
ess and ensuing experience of institutionalized persecution, which exerted
an obvious impact upon the development of her political philosophy.10
Not only was Arendt denied access to teaching positions at German uni-
versities on account of rising anti-Semitism, but she based the central
thesis of among her most famous scholarly contributions, The Origins
of Totalitarianism—not to mention over a third of the massive volume’s
intellectual content—upon its institutionalized practice. For Arendt, the
most significant feature of the German and Russian pan-movements was
their peculiarly ideological hatred of the Jews, a hatred “severed from
all actual experience concerning the Jewish people, political, social, or
economic”.11 Kurt Blumenfeld, a Zionist and avowed critic of German-
Jewish assimilation, initiated Arendt into Jewish politics as early as 1926.
Arendt offered her home as a harbour for political refugees from Hitler’s
burgeoning regime, although this and similar political activity came at
substantial personal cost to her: Arendt’s collection of anti-Semitic pro-
paganda from the Prussian State Library resulted in her apprehension and
interrogation at the hands of the German police. After more than a week
held under arrest, Arendt managed to escape to Czechoslovakia, thence
to Geneva and thence to Paris. She was to remain a displaced person, a
stateless exile, for eighteen years.
Of similar relevance to an understanding of the existential significance
of her work is an acknowledgement of the suffering and uncertainties
Arendt experienced at the hands of first her country of birth, Germany,
and then her country of residence, France. Arendt experienced the
irrationality of politically institutionalized racism and the insecurities of
prolonged refugee status; she underwent all the physical instabilities of
shifting residence and careers, working first with an organization that
 1 THE ABSENT ARENDT 5

helped train young émigrés to Palestine (Agriculture et Artisanat), then

as director of Youth Aliyah while also under the employ of Baroness Ger-
maine de Rothschild and finally with the Jewish Agency in Paris. Arendt
experienced all the emotional instabilities of marital dissolution and serial
monogamy, divorcing the Jewish philosopher Gunther Stern to marry the
leftist German political refugee Heinrich Blücher; she experienced all the
helpless bitterness of rising French anti-Semitism and the indignities of
political detainment as an “enemy alien” at Gurs in the south of France.
It was only through flight to the United States in May 1941 that Arendt,
occupied with research work for the Commission on European Jewish
Cultural Reconstruction in New York, found the political security and
physical opportunity to begin writing The Origins of Totalitarianism, a
project that would take almost ten years for her to complete. It is only
with this contextualization of this woman’s resilience, political activism
and scholarly intensity springing from her psycho-emotive trauma that
we can understand the impetus behind her scholarly contributions.
This volume charts the development of Arendt’s thought as informed
by this historical context and, more particularly, those philosophers whom
she read and with whom she related. Arendt pursued the act of thinking
via the approach developed by her mentor Martin Heidegger together
with an understanding of political action advanced by, most notably, her
other mentor Karl Jaspers. A path is traced through Arendt’s exploration
of Aristotle’s understanding of publicity, activity, communication, per-
suasion and responsibility—the link between morality (virtue) and poli-
tics in the pursuit of the common good modified by the Christian view
of the will derived from Augustine together with her understanding of
Immanuel Kant in relation to judgment and imagination. The view is
then advanced, first intimated to the author by Reinhard Schulz, that of
these Arendt was most influenced and informed by the life, work and
encouragement of her mentor Jaspers.
The influence of Jaspers is discernible in terms of his critique of the
modern phenomenon of mass man and the social effects of increasing
isolation and despiritualization, leading him to his recommendations of
practical and courageous action in public terms. In philosophical terms,
Arendt sought, with Jaspers, a reconciled recognition of the purpose of
politics through an exploration of the interaction of education with his-
tory. This view is held in contrast to the impact of Heidegger, whose
influence upon the emerging intellect of the young Arendt was a mix-
ture of inspiration and evaporation. Heidegger’s approach to thinking as
6 R. DEW

estranged from present action drove her away from him and his intellec-
tual posture, almost as much as his anti-Semitic stance and collaboration
with the Nazis during Hitler’s rise to power—a rise that forced her to flee
Germany, as well.
The first chapter of this book addresses its research aims and rationale,
including the literature already written on the topic. In the first part of
the book, my emphasis is on the influence on Arendt’s life and work on
the part of those she read and with whom she related. Chapter 2 begins
with the influence of Aristotle; Chapter 3 outlines the influence of Kant,
with particular reference to the formation of Arendt’s view of judgment;
Chapter 4 approaches Arendt’s interactions, intellectual and otherwise,
with her mentor Karl Jaspers; and Chapter 5 engages with the now-
famous debate as to the influence of Martin Heidegger. In the second
part of this book, a comparative discussion of Arendt’s atypical existen-
tialism is made, both in conversation with other existentialists (Chapter 6)
and as distinct from them (Chapter 7). This is then followed by conclu-
sions and suggestions for further areas of exploration in the final chapter
of this book, Chapter 8. This is to state that Arendt’s views have been
absent from the conversation long enough.
The claim is made that Arendt merits an atypical place among the
existentialist philosophers of the continental scheme and an introductory
place among the existentialists of the United States.12 A distinction is
made between the influence of Heidegger and of Jaspers upon the young
Arendt. Critical in this discussion are their respective approaches to
modernity and to the tradition which informed it. Arendt’s conception of
modernity can be located within a series of losses. Tradition, thought, cul-
ture and truth, for Arendt, are the threads that hold the narrative fabric of
humanity together. The primary loss (1) the loss of tradition, is followed
closely by, (2) the loss of faith, (3) the loss of authority, (4) the loss of
meaning, (5) the loss of reason, (6) the loss of thought, (7) the loss of pri-
vacy, (8) the loss of education, (9) the loss of culture and finally (10) the
loss of humanity. Instead, modernity has opted for the whimsical embrace
of (1) action, (2) process and (3) change by way of revolution, under
the mistaken assumption that newer is better just because it has energy
and the belief that authority ceases to exist just because it is ignored.
In this section, analysis is made of Arendt’s discourse on the modern
predicament.13 In the sections which follow, Arendt’s approach to the
modern predicament is examined as it was informed by the philosophers
she studied and by whom she was mentored, Heidegger and Jaspers.
 1 THE ABSENT ARENDT 7

I consider the picture Arendt portrays to be complicated insofar as the

severing of each of these critical threads—with the associated losses of
tradition, faith, authority, meaning, reason, thought, privacy, education,
culture and humanity—leads to the unravelling of those beside it, gener-
ating the loss of narrative fabric we now experience. According to Arendt,
it was the Roman exaltation of tradition which was “the guiding thread
through the past and the chain to which each new generation knowingly
or unknowingly was bound”.14 The attachment of this “thread” of tradi-
tion related to the understanding of the world in both the individual and
political sense.15 The loss of tradition signifies inevitably a loss of religious
and historical grounding, which necessarily leads to a loss of faith in all
that is true, enduring and good, in favour of the young, changing, rebel-
lious and ignorant. Thus, the loss of narrative (philosophical, religious,
historical or otherwise) amounts to a loss of human culture, an expres-
sion of the talents of the individual as a reflection of the historical time
which she inhabits. The political emphasis of modernity upon constructed
norms and the mass equalization of society through both education and
entertainment combine with an irreligious modern philosophy to produce
social alienation and moral abstruseness, with the long-term tendency of
irrationality. The result is not the enlightened equality of the individual
or the glorification of human ability through artistic achievement and cul-
tural expression but rather the disrespect of the individual and the blind
subservience to what could well be called the secular superstition.
This attitude towards the modern predicament distinguishes Arendt
from that of her mentor Heidegger—even though the latter’s views have
too often been considered compatible with hers.16 The primary fault
with too closely aligning the views of Arendt alongside those of her
existentialist mentor Heidegger is further compounded by the systematic
silence on the philosophical impacts of Arendt’s other mentor, Jaspers,
upon the development of her political philosophy. The purpose of this
research is to explore Arendt’s assessment of modernity and approach to
politics as atypical, and with particular relation to the philosophical views
of her mentors Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. Arendt was informed
by them—as indeed she was by Aristotle, Kant and Augustine—but this
does not negate the atypicality of Arendt’s approach or her enlightened
respect for tradition.
For Arendt, the most fundamental loss experienced by modernity, the
loss which defines all others, is the loss of tradition. The starting point of
this loss is not a natural by-product of history so much as a philosophical
8 R. DEW

rebellion against it; the beginning can be traced to the chosen ideological
stance of the epoch-definers of the revolutionary development of mod-
ern intellectual thought (Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche), but
has since morphed into the proclivity towards philosophical and historical
forgetfulness we see on all fronts of modern social awareness—religious,
educational and political—developments more in line with the distrust
and fear inherent to Descartes’ de omnibus dubitandum est than with the
inspired fervency of revolutionary idealism.17 The emotional prevalence
of doubt, as Arendt puts it, is manifest as a “general crisis and instability
in modern society”.18 This doubtful sentiment so characteristic of moder-
nity has led not only to a distrust of tradition and to a distrust of the
mind, but of the senses. It was Nietzsche who discovered that “the sen-
suous loses its very raison d’être when it is deprived of its background
of the suprasensuous and transcendent”.19 In other words, human emo-
tion both implies and demands transcendence. If traditional encounters
with the transcendent are denied, then so too, it would seem, is what we
traditionally know, experience and feel—human emotion.
Further, this proclivity towards forgetfulness20 reveals itself as con-
tributing to ideological confusion—the proliferation of unlikely ideo-
logical stances and the eradication of the most likely—and widespread
ignorance. The human need for history lies in the creation of immortality
through memory.21 The role of tradition, and educational transfer, is of
vital importance to the maintenance of meaning through memory. With-
out narrative consistency, modernity threatens breakage of “the thread
of continuity in history itself”.22 Indeed, one of the most important
concepts in the development of Arendt’s thought, distinguishing her
existentialism as atypical, is the principle of natality. Natality, or the
human capacity to begin through birth, is the defining moment of the
human as individual and plays an integral part in the creation of human
culture,23 a statement Arendt supports with the “Roman pathos for
foundation”.24 In this classical emphasis, the Roman Republic’s founding
act sets the precedent for national identity, political recognition, cultural
unification and historic continuity.25 Arendt also illustrates the impor-
tance of the written word in the formation and continuity of ideological
cohesion and cultural meaning through verbal narrative,26 indicating the
political primacy of the constitution as the formative embodiment which
most defines and guarantees identity. National identity, however, must be
followed by national belief in line with a cohesive narrative if the political
entity is to retain its strength and character.
 1 THE ABSENT ARENDT 9

While Arendt’s treatment of modernity is well-represented in her essays

Between Past and Future (1961, 1968), her other works also make rel-
evant and insightful contributions to our understanding of the type and
features of her existentialism and her place in the transatlantic intellectual
exchange. Arendt’s argument in On Revolution confirms the uniqueness
of the American democratic form; she highlights the liberal emphasis of
the democratic republic in that it does not seek to limit power so much
as extend power to the individual, a decentralized admission of power.
This capacity for self-government is, for Arendt, the “lost treasure of the
revolution”.27 In contrast, On Violence reinforces Arendt’s dislocation of
action from thought, a dislocation expressed as violence, and the failed
attempt to arrive at hope through action. Essentially, in the secularized
conception of freedom as action, action is idealized as leading to change
and thus defining modernity. But this idealization of the modern ideol-
ogy is misplaced in that it assigned a certain nobility to violence, excusing
its horrors in admiration of its ruthless efficiency.
The justification of violence occurs for the most part not within the
environs of political justice (as established under legitimate authority) or
political power (as an aggregate of popular consensus), but in a hazy con-
ception of rights allocated in the dim twilight of socialized bureaucracies,
which present spaces of interpretive ambiguity and general uncertainty
through the detachment inherent to their administrative procedure. Sim-
ilarly, as an analysis of Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) shows,
the loss of traditional narratives through the rise of an ideology of decep-
tion and fear can culminate in the all-pervasive tyranny that is totalitarian.
Characteristic of this society is its rejection of the human qua human, as
demonstrated through the suppression of religious beliefs, cultural activi-
ties and individual interests it entailed.
In Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the collective will of the state out-
ranked what were meant to be the primary signifiers of modernity, the
rights and freedoms of the individuals who constituted it, thereby vali-
dating Arendt’s essays in their ascription of the demise of the human qua
human to the advent of modernity. Similarly, Arendt’s identification of
the formation of modern mass society28 is reminiscent of the totalitarian
tendencies towards social atomization29 and “pseudomysticism”, in that
“the people it dominates never really know why something is happening,
and a rational interpretation of laws does not exist”.30 Thus, the cold,
10 R. DEW

calculated, and secretive consistency of the totalitarian regime is compa-

rable to the methodical bureaucratization of society in political modernity
at large.
Thus, Arendt’s scathing assessment of modernity is troubling in its
accuracy31 and unsettling in its atypicality. The most significant devel-
opment of modernity is not the hatred of the old so much as a rebellion
against the established. The primary feature of modernity is the rebel-
lion against authority. And it is this loss of authority which is felt most
keenly by the individual and the polis . It was Kierkegaard, Marx and Niet-
zsche who first thought outside of the traditional contexts of established
authority, and, as such, they became the torch-bearers of modernity—
torch-bearers who, in their fiery optimism and burning zeal, soon found
that a fire without fuel (and without confident torch-bearers) can only
be turned into ashes. The glorification of action over philosophical reflec-
tion, a socialized and materialistic glorification evinced by Marx’s theoret-
ical contributions, can only generate the passing achievements that action
without memory or life without meaning brings. If Arendt is correct,
meaning, by definition, is unattainable through action; only the accurate
contextualization of history paired with the honest compilation of trust-
worthy scribes and the faithful dissemination of reliable teachers can be
trusted. Without trust, there is no hope just as there remains no past. As
Arendt details, the inevitable consequence of Nietzsche’s inverted Platon-
ism is nihilism, a loss of groundings ontological, epistemological, moral
and emotional.32 The modern loss of tradition has decidedly political, cul-
tural and educational implications, and still more impactful are the impli-
cations of these changes to the distinctly human endeavours of ethics,
psychology and artistic creativity. If the secular utopia is the promised
hope of modernity, it is a promise that must be classified as deceptive.
This book bridges the gap regarding Arendt’s approach to the philo-
sophical developments resulting from the modern period, restoring to the
public view what has been too long an absent Arendt. In fact, Arendt’s cri-
tique of modernity has been misunderstood to a large extent because her
intellectual-emotional relationship to her two existentialist mentors has
not been sufficiently taken into account, even as her distrust of ideologies
as they have developed in modernity has often been remarkably neglected
in favour of a dramatization of the personal details of her private life. The
human diaspora resulting from the terrors of Nazism illustrates not only
the dangers of modern ideology in its practical application but also the
experiential catalyst to Arendt’s stance: Modernity is a problem in terms
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au surplus. Les livres capitaux dans chaque genre sont rares, et au
total ils pourroient peut-être se réduire à une cinquantaine
d’ouvrages qu’il suffiroit de bien méditer. »
C’est surtout la lecture assidue des plus grands génies que me
recommandoit M. de Buffon ; il en trouvoit bien peu dans le monde.
« Il n’y en a guère que cinq, me disait-il, Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz,
Montesquieu et moi. A l’égard de Newton, il a découvert un grand
principe ; mais il a passé toute sa vie à faire des calculs pour le
démontrer, et, par rapport au style, il ne peut pas être d’une grande
utilité. » Il faisoit plus de cas de Leibnitz que de Bacon lui-même ; il
prétendoit que Leibnitz emportoit les choses à la pointe de son
génie, au lieu que chez Bacon les découvertes ne naissent qu’après
de profondes réflexions ; mais il disoit en même temps que ce qui
montroit mieux le génie de Leibnitz n’étoit peut-être pas dans la
collection de ses ouvrages ; qu’il falloit le chercher dans les
mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin. En citant Montesquieu, il parloit
de son génie, et non pas de son style, qui n’est pas toujours parfait,
qui est trop écourté, qui manque de développement. « Je l’ai
beaucoup connu, me disoit-il, et ce défaut tenoit à son physique. Le
président étoit presque aveugle, et il étoit si vif que la plupart du
temps il oublioit ce qu’il vouloit dicter, en sorte qu’il étoit obligé de se
resserrer dans le moindre espace possible. »
Enfin, j’étais bien aise de savoir ce que M. de Buffon me diroit de
lui-même, comment il s’apprécioit ; et voici le tour dont je m’avisai.
Il m’avoit demandé à voir de mon style. Je craignois ce moment ;
cependant l’extrême envie d’entendre ses observations et de me
former par ses critiques me fit oublier les intérêts de mon amour-
propre. Je lui récitai donc la seule chose dont je me souvinsse pour
lors ; je vis avec plaisir qu’il ne corrigea qu’un seul mot, qu’il critiqua
avec rigueur, mais avec raison, et il me dit avec sa franchise
accoutumée : « Voilà une page que je n’écrirais pas mieux. » Enhardi
par cette première réussite, il me parut plaisant d’écrire une autre
page sur lui-même, et de la lui présenter. Il étoit téméraire d’oser
ainsi juger le génie en présence du génie même. Je pris le parti de
comparer l’invention de M. de Buffon avec celle de Rousseau, me
doutant pour qui, sans injustice, pencheroit la balance. Voilà donc
que je m’enferme le soir dans ma chambre, je prends l’Émile et le
volume des Vues sur la Nature ; je me mets à lire alternativement
une page de l’un, une page de l’autre ; j’écoutois ensuite les
impressions que je ressentais intérieurement. J’en comptois les
différentes espèces ; au bout d’une heure je parvins à les réaliser, et
à les écrire [13] . Le lendemain je portai cette page à M. de Buffon ; je
puis dire qu’il en fut prodigieusement satisfait. A mesure que je la lui
lisois, il se récrioit, ou bien il corrigeoit quelques mots ; enfin il passa
cinq jours à relire, à retoucher lui-même ce morceau.
Continuellement il me faisoit appeller pour me demander si
j’adhérois à tel changement ; je le combattois quelquefois, je me
rendois presque toujours. M. de Buffon, depuis ce temps, ne mit plus
de bornes à son affection pour moi. Tantôt il s’écrioit : « Voilà une
haute conception, pardieu, pardieu, on ne peut pas faire mieux une
comparaison, c’est une page à mettre entre Rousseau et moi. »
Tantôt il me conjuroit de la mettre au net de ma main, et de la signer,
et de permettre qu’il l’envoyât à M. et Mme Necker. Tantôt il
m’engageoit à la faire insérer, sans me nommer, dans le Journal de
Paris, ou dans le Mercure. Voulant me divertir un peu de la bonne et
franche vanité du personnage, je lui demandai si je ne ferois pas
bien d’envoyer en même temps aux journaux l’inscription que son fils
venoit de lui dédier au pied de la colonne qu’il lui avoit élevée.
« Pour une autre fois, me répondit-il ; il ne faut pas diviser l’attention.
Ce sera le sujet de deux lettres. »
[13] C’est le PARALLÈLE suivant entre J. J. Rousseau et M. de Buffon,
considérés sous le rapport de la pensée :
« En lisant, dans le dessein de comparer, les morceaux philosophiques du
célèbre Rousseau, et de l’illustre auteur de l’Histoire naturelle, voici le parallèle
que j’ai cru pouvoir établir entre ces deux grands écrivains.
« Rousseau a l’éloquence des passions, Buffon la parole du génie.
« Rousseau analyse chaque idée ; Buffon généralise la sienne, et ne daigne
particulariser que l’expression.
« Rousseau démêle et réunit les sensations qu’un objet fait naître ; Buffon ne
choisit que les plus grandes, et combine pour en comparer de nouvelles.
 « Rousseau n’a rien écrit que pour des auditeurs, Buffon que pour des lecteurs.
« Dans les belles amplifications auxquelles s’est livré Rousseau, on voit qu’il
s’enivre de sa pensée ; il s’y complaît, et tourne autour d’elle jusqu’à ce qu’il l’ait
épuisée dans les plus petites nuances : c’est un cercle qui, dans l’onde la plus
pure, s’élargit souvent au point de disparoître. Buffon, lorsqu’il présente une vue
générale, donne à ses conceptions le mouvement qui naît de l’ordre, et ce
mouvement, plus il est mesuré, plus il est rapide. Semblable à une pyramide
immense, dont la base couvre la terre, et dont le sommet va se perdre dans le ciel,
sa pensé audacieuse et assurée recueille les faits, saisit leur chaîne invisible, les
suspend à leurs origines, élève toutes ces origines les unes sur les autres, et, se
resserrant au lieu de croître, s’accélère en montant, et ne s’arrête qu’au point d’où
elle embrasse et domine tout.
« Rousseau, par une suite de son caractère, se fait presque toujours le centre
de ses idées : elles lui sont plus personnelles qu’elles ne sont propres au sujet, et
l’ouvrage ne produit ou plutôt ne présente que l’ouvrier ; Buffon, par une
connoissance de plus du sujet et de l’art d’écrire, rassemble toutes les opérations
de l’esprit, pour révéler les mystères et développer les œuvres de la nature. Son
style, formé d’une combinaison de rapports, devient alors un style nécessaire ; il
grave tout ce qu’il peint, et il féconde en décrivant.
« Enfin, Rousseau a mis en activité tous les sens que donne la nature ; et
Buffon, par une plus grande activité, semble s’être créé un sens de plus. »

Enfin, ne sachant quelle fête me faire, ni comment me témoigner

sa joie, voici ce qu’il me dit un jour. Je ne devrois pas le dire ; car je
vais tomber dans un amour-propre bien plus ridicule, et bien moins
fondé que le sien ; mais la fidélité de ma narration exige que je dise
tout : je parlerois même contre moi si cette même narration
l’exigeoit. J’entendis donc un matin sa sonnette, dont il sonne
toujours trois coups, et, l’instant d’après, son valet de chambre vint
me dire : « M. de Buffon vous demande. » Je monte ; il vient à moi,
m’embrasse, et dit : « Permettez-moi de vous donner un conseil. »
Je ne savois où il en vouloit venir : je lui promis que tout ce qu’il
voudroit bien me dire seroit reçu avec une entière reconnoissance.
« Vous avez deux noms, me dit-il ; on vous donne dans le monde
tantôt l’un, tantôt l’autre, et quelquefois tous les deux ensemble ;
croyez-moi, tenez-vous-en à un seul : il ne faut pas que l’étranger
puisse s’y méprendre. »
 Il me parla ensuite avec passion de l’étude, du bonheur qu’elle
assure ; il me dit qu’il s’étoit toujours placé hors de la société ; que
souvent il avoit recherché des savans, croyant gagner beaucoup
dans leur entretien ; qu’il avoit vu que, pour une phrase quelquefois
utile qu’il en recueilloit, ce n’étoit pas la peine de perdre une soirée
entière ; que le travail étoit devenu pour lui un besoin, qu’il espéroit
s’y livrer encore pendant trois ou quatre ans qui lui restoient à vivre ;
qu’il n’avoit aucune crainte de la mort ; que l’idée d’une renommée
immortelle le consoloit ; que, s’il avoit pu chercher des
dédommagemens de tout ce qu’on appelle des sacrifices au travail,
il en auroit trouvé d’abondans dans l’estime de l’Europe et les lettres
flatteuses des principales têtes couronnées. Ce vieillard ouvrit alors
un tiroir, et me montra une lettre magnifique du prince Henri [G] , qui
étoit venu passer un jour à Montbard ; qui l’avoit traité avec une
sorte de respect ; qui, sachant qu’après son dîner il avoit coutume de
dormir, s’étoit assujetti à ses heures ; qui venoit de lui envoyer un
service de porcelaine dont lui-même avoit donné les dessins, et où
des cygnes sont représentés dans toutes leurs attitudes, en
mémoire de l’histoire du Cygne, que M. de Buffon lui avoit lue à son
passage ; enfin, qui lui écrivoit ces paroles remarquables : « Si
j’avois besoin d’un ami, ce seroit lui ; d’un père, encore lui ; d’une
intelligence pour m’éclairer, eh ! quel autre que lui ? »
M. de Buffon me montra ensuite plusieurs lettres de l’impératrice
de Russie, écrites de sa propre main, pleines de génie, où cette
grande femme le loue de la manière qui lui a été le plus sensible,
puisqu’il est clair qu’elle a lu ses ouvrages, et qu’elle les a compris
en savant. Elle lui mandoit : « Newton avoit fait un pas, vous avez
fait le second. » En effet, Newton a découvert la loi de l’attraction,
Buffon a démontré celle de l’impulsion, qui, à l’aide de la précédente,
semble expliquer toute la nature. Elle ajoutoit : « Vous n’avez pas
encore vidé votre sac au sujet de l’homme », faisant allusion par là
au système de la génération, et Buffon s’applaudissoit d’avoir été
plus entendu par une souveraine que par une Académie. Il me
montra aussi des questions très épineuses que lui proposoit
l’impératrice sur les Époques de la Nature ; il me confia les réponses
qu’il y faisoit. Dans cette haute correspondance de la puissance et
du génie, mais où le génie exerçoit la véritable puissance, je sentois
mon âme attendrie, élevée ; la gloire paroissoit se personnifier à mes
yeux ; je m’imaginois la toucher, la saisir, et cette admiration des
souverains, forcés de s’humilier ainsi eux-mêmes devant une
grandeur réelle, touchoit mon cœur, comme un hommage bien au-
dessus de tous les honneurs qu’ils eussent pu décerner dans leur
empire.
Je quittai peu de jours après ce bon et grand homme, emportant
dans mon cœur un souvenir profond et immortel de tout ce que
j’avois vu, de tout ce que j’avois entendu. Je me récitois, en
m’éloignant, ces deux beaux vers de l’Œdipe de Voltaire :

L’amitié d’un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux,

Je lisois mon devoir et mon sort dans ses yeux.

Il étoit dit que j’aurois encore une fois le bonheur de le voir. En

quittant Semur pour retourner à Paris, la poste me ramena par
Montbard, contre mon attente. Je ne pus m’empêcher, quoiqu’il fût
sept heures du matin, d’envoyer mon valet de chambre savoir des
nouvelles de M. de Buffon. Il me fit dire qu’il vouloit absolument me
voir. Lorsque je le revis, je me jetai dans ses bras, et ce bon vieillard
me serra longtemps contre son sein, avec une tendresse
paternelle [H] . Il voulut déjeuner avec moi, remplit ma voiture de
provisions, et me parla pendant trois heures avec plus de chaleur et
d’activité que jamais. Il sembloit m’ouvrir son âme et m’y laisser
pénétrer à loisir ; l’amour de l’étude ne fut point oublié dans cet
entretien.
Je consultai M. de Buffon sur un projet d’ouvrage que j’ai formé
sur la législation, qui occuperoit, il est vrai, une grande partie de la
vie, et peut-être la vie tout entière. Mais quel plus beau monument
pourroit laisser un magistrat ? Nous en raisonnâmes longtemps. Il
s’agiroit de faire une revue générale de tous les droits des hommes
et de toutes leurs lois ; de les comparer, de les juger, et d’élever
ensuite un nouvel édifice. Il approuva mes vues, m’encouragea ; il
augmenta mon plan et en fixa la mesure. Il me persuada, comme
c’étoit mon projet, de ne prendre que les sommités des choses,
capita rerum, mais de les bien développer, quoique sans longueur,
de resserrer l’ouvrage en un volume in-4o, ou deux tout au plus ; de
le travailler sur quatre parties : 1o morale universelle, ce qu’elle doit
être dans tous les temps et dans tous les lieux ; 2o législation
universelle, prendre l’esprit de toutes les lois qui existent dans
l’univers (comme je lui disois qu’il y auroit un bel ouvrage à faire sur
la manière de rédiger une loi, en suivant toutes les circonstances
possibles, où la raison humaine pourroit avoir à s’exercer ; il me dit
que ce seroit la troisième partie de mon ouvrage) ; 3o d’une réforme
qu’il voudroit introduire dans les différentes lois du globe ; 4o enfin, il
m’ajouta qu’il y auroit une magnifique conclusion, qui seroit
déterminée par un grand chapitre sur la nécessité et sur l’abus des
formes. Par ce moyen on embrasseroit tous les objets possibles qui
peuvent concerner la législation. Ce plan, quoique immense dans le
détail, m’a paru très satisfaisant, et je me suis proposé de l’exécuter.
Je sais tout ce qu’il m’en coûtera ; mais un grand plan et un grand
but laissent du bonheur dans l’âme, chaque jour qu’on se met à
l’œuvre. M. de Buffon ne me cacha point, et je le sentois bien, que
j’aurais plus à travailler qu’un autre, ayant en outre à remplir les
devoirs de ma charge, qui suffisoient pour absorber un homme ;
mais quelle supériorité une pareille étude constamment suivie, ne
me donnoit-elle pas, même pour remplir ces mêmes devoirs ? Il me
conseilla donc de ne les points négliger ; mais il m’avertit qu’avec de
la patience et de la méthode je m’apercevrois chaque jour du
progrès et de la vigueur de mon intelligence. Il m’exhorta à faire
comme lui, à prendre un secrétaire uniquement pour ce travail. En
effet, M. de Buffon s’est toujours beaucoup fait aider ; on lui
fournissoit des observations, des expériences, des mémoires, et il
combinoit tout cela avec la puissance de son génie. J’en ai trouvé
une fois la preuve dans le peu de papiers qu’il avoit laissés dans un
carton : je vis un mémoire sur l’aimant, auquel il travaille, envoyé par
le comte de Lacépède, jeune homme plein d’ardeur et de
connoissances.
 Buffon a raison : il y a mille choses qu’il faut laisser à des
manœuvres, autrement on seroit écrasé, et on n’arriveroit jamais à
son but. Il me dit que dans le temps de ses plus grands travaux il
avoit une chambre remplie de cartons, qu’il a depuis brûlés. Il me
fortifia dans la résolution de ne point consulter les livres, de tirer tout
de moi-même, de ne les ouvrir que quand je ne pourrais plus aller
plus loin que le point où je me trouvois. Encore parmi les livres il me
conseilla de ne lire que l’histoire naturelle, l’histoire et les voyages : il
avoit bien raison. La plupart des hommes manquent de génie, parce
qu’ils n’ont pas la force ni la patience de prendre les choses de
haut : ils partent de trop bas, et cependant tout doit se trouver dans
les origines. Quand on connoît l’histoire naturelle d’un peuple, on
doit trouver sans peine quelles sont ses mœurs, quelles sont ses
lois. On trouveroit presque son histoire civile tout entière ; mais,
quand on connoît de plus son histoire civile, on doit encore plus
aisément découvrir et juger ses lois, en les combinant soit avec sa
constitution, soit avec les événemens.
« Je ne suis pas en peine de vous, me disoit M. de Buffon, pour
la première partie, savoir pour la morale universelle : vous vous en
tirerez bien, il suffit d’avoir une âme droite et un esprit pénétrant et
juste ; mais c’est lorsqu’il s’agira de découvrir et classer cette
multitude innombrable d’institutions et de lois : voilà un grand effort,
et digne de tout le courage humain. » Je ne pus m’empêcher de lui
faire une observation délicate : « Et la religion, Monsieur, comment
nous en tirerons-nous ? » Il me répondit : « Il y a moyen de tout dire ;
vous remarquerez que c’est un objet à part ; vous vous
envelopperez dans tout le respect qu’on lui doit à cause du peuple :
il vaut mieux être compris d’un petit nombre d’intelligens, et leur
suffrage seul vous dédommage de n’être point compris par la
multitude. Quant à moi, je traiterais avec un égal respect le
christianisme et le mahométisme. »
Ainsi s’écouloient les heures dans ces entretiens de gloire et
d’espérance. Je ne pouvois m’arracher du sein de ce nouveau père
que la science et le génie m’avoient donnés. Il fallut enfin le quitter :
ce ne fut pas sans être resté longtemps dans les plus étroits
embrassemens, et sans une promesse réitérée de me nourrir
beaucoup de ses ouvrages, qui contiennent toute la philosophie
naturelle, et de le cultiver en même temps avec une assiduité filiale
le reste de sa vie.
Voilà tout ce que je sais sur M. de Buffon. Comme ces détails ne
sont que pour moi, je m’y suis étendu avec complaisance, et avec
une sorte de vénération.
 NOTES

[A] Page 3, ligne 22. Il a péri sur l’échafaud quelques jours avant
le 9 thermidor, en prononçant avec calme et avec dignité ces mots :
« Citoyens, je me nomme Buffon. » Ils prouvent qu’il avoit l’âme
élevée et la conscience du respect que son nom devoit inspirer à
tout autre qu’à des assassins et à des bourreaux. (Note de l’édition
de l’an IX.)
[B] 6, 10. Première édition : « Mêlant seulement quelques
inflexions. »
[C] 11, 5. Ne seroit-ce pas M. de Belle-Isle ? (Note de l’édition de
l’an IX.)
[D] 22, 12. Antoine Bougot, dit le père Ignace, né à Dijon en
1721, mort à Buffon, le 1er juillet 1798. Voir sa biographie dans
Buffon, sa famille et ses collaborateurs, mémoires de M. Humbert
Bazille, édités par M. Henri Nadault de Buffon : Paris, 1863, in-8,
pages 405-415. Le même ouvrage contient (pages 416-420) une
notice sur Marie-Madeleine Blesseau, dont il a été question plus
haut.
[E] 25, 9. L’âge alors avoit fait perdre à M. de Buffon une partie
des agrémens de la jeunesse ; mais il lui restoit une taille
avantageuse, un air noble, une figure imposante, une physionomie à
la fois douce et majestueuse. L’enthousiasme pour le talent fit
disparaître aux yeux de Mme de Buffon l’inégalité d’âge : et, à cette
époque de la vie où la félicité semble se borner à remplacer par
l’amitié et des souvenirs mêlés de regrets, un bonheur plus doux qui
nous échappe, il eut celui d’inspirer une passion tendre et constante.
Jamais une admiration plus profonde ne s’unit à une tendresse plus
vraie. Ces sentimens se montroient dans les regards, dans les
manières, dans les discours de Mme de Buffon, et remplissoient son
cœur et sa vie. Chaque nouvel ouvrage de son mari, chaque
nouvelle palme ajoutée à sa gloire étoit pour elle une source de
jouissances d’autant plus douces qu’elles étoient sans retour sur
elle-même, sans aucun mélange de l’orgueil que pouvoit lui inspirer
l’honneur de partager la considération et le nom de M. de Buffon. Il
n’a conservé d’elle qu’un fils (celui dont il est question dans cet
ouvrage). Condorcet, Éloge de Buffon. (Note de l’édition de l’an
IX.)
[F] 25, 17. Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin Mâlain, née le 11 juillet
1732, avait épousé Buffon le 21 septembre 1752. Elle mourut à
Montbard le 9 mars 1769.
[G] 42, 15. Il s’agit du prince Henri de Prusse, frère du grand
Frédéric.
[H] 44, 17. Ici se termine le récit d’Hérault de Séchelles dans
l’édition de 1785. L’auteur ajoute : Écrit dans l’allée de Bréaux, près
du couvent, octobre 1785.
 Imprimé par D. Jouaust
POUR LA COLLECTION
DES CHEFS-D’ŒUVRE INCONNUS

Août 1890
 LES CHEFS-D’ŒUVRE INCONNUS

Sous le titre de Chefs-d’œuvre inconnus, nous réunissons non

seulement certaines œuvres, presque ignorées, de nos grands
écrivains, mais encore des productions remarquables qui n’ont vu le
jour que pour tomber immédiatement dans l’oubli, entraînant avec
elles jusqu’aux noms de leurs auteurs. Nous avons voulu les
présenter aux amateurs sous une forme élégante qui les vengeât de
l’injuste abandon où elles étaient tombées, et au charme d’une
impression de luxe nous avons joint l’attrait de gravures dues à l’un
des artistes les plus favorisés du public.
EN VENTE

Le voyage à Paphos, de Montesquieu 5 fr.

La Petite Maison, de J.-F. de Bastide 5 fr.
Le Tombeau de Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, par d’Alembert et Guibert 6 fr.
Les aventures du faux Chevalier de Warwick 6 fr.
Contes et Poésies de La Chaussée 5 fr.
Anecdotes littéraires, de Voisenon 7 50
Louise et Thérèse, de Restif de la Bretonne 5 fr.
Les Veillées d’un malade, de Villeterque 6 fr.
Annales amusantes (1741) 5 fr.
Les Porcherons, poème 6 fr.
Contes de Saint-Lambert 5 fr.
Bagatelles morales, de l’abbé Coyer 6 fr.
Psaphion, ou la Courtisane de Smyrne, de Meusnier de Querlon 6 fr.
L’amitié de deux jolies femmes et Un Rêve de Mademoiselle Clairson,
par Mme d’Épinay 5 fr.
Les Soupers de Daphné, par Meusnier de Querlon 5 50
Les Promenades à la mode. Paris au X V I I I e siècle 6 50
Les Confessions du Comte de ***, par Duclos 8 fr.
Almanach des Bizarreries humaines, de Bailleul 6 fr.

Prix doubles pour le pap. de Chine et le pap. Whatman.

Août 1890.

Imp Jouaust.
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