Abstract

Received: 00/00/2018 | Accepted: 00/00/2018 Hannah Arendt’s philosophical thoughts have some theoretical proximity with her compatriot mentor Martin Heidegger and on the other hand are directly influenced by contemporary political events like the rising of new forms of regimes and the Second World War. Hannah Arendt is a political philosopher who understands art to be a way to achieve a type of political life and tries to revive a type of political social life which she believes has been corrupted and lost in the modern era by using a liberal foundation like art. Considering that Arendt has not written a distinct and compiled work under the title of political aesthetics or philosophy of art, in this paper we will try to understand her aesthetics which has been presented in the context of a type of political philosophy by collecting, compiling, reviewing and analyzing Arendt’s scattered views in her books, articles, lessons and notes. In Arendt’s philosophy, the disappearance and corruption of the political character of human life is closely related to the corruption and transmutation of the public sphere. Therefore, the public sphere and its maintenance can somehow be considered as Arendt’s political philosophy ideal. The importance of this topic can be realized only when we understand how Arendt thinks the maintenance of the public sphere requires the existence of diversities and how the maintenance of diversity requires art. Due to the character of her philosophy we will review the philosophical foundations which were undefined in her works to make it possible to understand her aim of some kind of political aesthetics which is hidden in her philosophy.