Abstract

Hannah Arendt shares with her teacher Martin Heidegger the conviction that the unique position the contemporary man enjoys in relation to the past derives from his being situated on the threshold of a great tradition. While discussing Ricoeur's interpretation of Arendt's thought, this essay aims at sketching Arendt's attitude toward the tradition: what is the foundation of a thought that, like Arendt's, claims to separate and distinguish what history has handed down in an obscure and confused way?