Abstract The relationship between truth and politics is an ancient and venerable problem in political philosophy. But just as the traditional subordination of politics to philosophy has obscured central categories and experiences of politics (like action and freedom), it has also obscured the distinctive problem of truth in politics, or truth as a problem for politics. A vital task for political theory today is to understand the vulnerability of truth in the milieu of politics, and to offer a specifically political defense of truth in public life. Yet three dominant approaches in democratic theory—a deliberative commitment to defending rational justification; a poststructuralist focus on unmasking power; and an appeal to judgement informed by the “aesthetic turn”—do not seem adequate to this task. To engage effectively with the problem of truth in politics today we must speak simultaneously to the conditions of public knowledge and the problem of lying in politics, both of which are contoured by a crisis of authority. This dissertation argues that Hannah Arendt offers unique resources for this task, because modern science, lying in politics, and the crisis of authority are all central (if comparatively neglected) themes of her oeuvre.

Creator

• Neame, Alexandra Catherine

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-dtxk-gt74

Subject

• Political science

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_627550
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14478

Keyword

• Truth
• Earth
• Arendt
• Lying
• Authority
• Science

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright