Summer-Dream-Prelude to Hannah Arendt
Georg Hartmann: The ‚Hannah-Book‘ by Karl Jaspers
Lecture by Georg Hartmann: The 'Hannah Book' by Karl Jaspers: On Independent Thinking. Hannah Arendt and Her Critics
It had long been known that the philosopher and political writer Karl Jaspers wanted to write a book about his student and innovator of political philosophy Hannah Arendt. Started in 1963 after the brilliant controversy about Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem", it was never completed. In the end, the two merely agreed to abandon the project. Jaspers wanted to bundle several topics in these fragments, which have now been edited as part of the Karl Jaspers Complete Edition: An account of Arendt's person and work, in particular her report of the trial, his own examination of the Eichmann trial and the person of Eichmann, as well as the question of the reality and ethos of the German resistance during the National Socialist era. Last but not least, however, he was concerned with two basic motifs of his philosophizing, which are in irritating tension with each other: the attempt to think independently and the inevitability of contentious debate in a historically and politically turbulent time that calls into question the foundations of humanity.
The lecture by Georg Hartmann, editor of the 'Hannah-Book', will be followed by a discussion with Reinhard Schulz.
The event is a cooperation between the Stadtakademie Hannover, the Kestner Gesellschaft and the Hannah Arendt Center Oldenburg.
Georg Hartmann studied philosophy and religious studies in Tübingen; he is currently working as an editor on the Critical Complete Edition of the works of Karl Jaspers. He has published essays on Karl Jaspers, Gerhard Krüger and Jean Améry, among others. He is currently working on the edition of the correspondence between Karl Jaspers and Ernst Mayer, which played a decisive role in the creation of the three-volume "Philosophie".