ABSTRACT
In this article, I emphasize how Arendt mobilizes the notions of understanding and meaning in an original way to guide her interpretation of political phenomena. It is worth noting that the criteria that the author thinks for the comprehensive activity are configured as an undeveloped hermeneutics, but which appears as a background for her thinking. The starting point deals with the conceptual distinction that she makes between truth and meaning, the latter as the constant and unending goal of the comprehensive activity. Then, from Arendt’s Thought Diary, I rescue the notions of denaturalization and crystallization as hermeneutic perspectives based on the notion of meaning, instead of the causality criterion. Finally, I explain how totalitarianism can be read under a hermeneutic view.
Keywords:
Meaning; Understanding; Denaturalization; Crystallization; Totalitarianism