Abstract

Moving from the recent Italian translation of the "Briefwechsel" between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, this essay aims at assessing the philosophical impact of their relationship, as well as discussing the voluminous bibliography on the theme. The essay focuses particularly on Heidegger's influence over the philosophical project of "The Human Condition": the way in which Arendt thinks the ontological status of the different human activities and their relation to reality stems from an original reprise of the Heideggerian reflection on the concept of truth as "aletheia" and of the ontological interpretation of the different modes of disclosure listed by Aristotle in Book VI of "Nicomachean Ethics". Both themes had been discussed by Heidegger during the Marburg years. There is, furthermore, a tight link between the Arendtian notion of labor and Heidegger's reflections on the problem of technics during the late Forties and early Fifties.