Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt's Theory of Political Action, covers a wide spectrum of Arendt's works in providing a framework for her theory of political action. Tchir draws upon a range of thinkers, such as Heidegger, Kant, Augustine and Montesquieu, who influenced aspects of Arendt's theory, and upon those thinkers, whom Arendt explicitly criticized, such as Marx, to demonstrate how she both breaks with the tradition of western political thought and recollects and revises some of the concepts within that tradition in order to re-conceptualize "political action" in the modern age of secular politics. Thus, Tchir also highlights how Arendt transforms and revises aspects of others' philosophies, in significant ways, when she does borrow from them. Moreover, his inclusion of commentary and criticisms of Arendt's approach to political action by numerous contemporary thinkers helps him to illuminate the tensions within the Arendt's thought and to delineate his own thesis and argument. However, much of his book is devoted to an exegesis and interpretation of Arendt's diverse works in respect to her theory of political action.