:

Karl Marx, Fragment on association from ?Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844,? translated by Martin Mulligan.

?When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end.
But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need ? the need for
society ? and what appears as a means becomes an end. In this practical process the most
splendid results are to be observed whenever French socialist workers are seen together. Such
things as smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer means of contact or means that bring
them together. Association, society and conversation, which again has association as its end, are
enough for them; the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the
nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.?

HANNAH ARENDT

Between Past and Future
EIGHT EXERCISES IN

POLITICAL THOUGHT

Introduction by JEROME KOHN

PENGUIN BOOKS

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This edition with an introduction by Jerome Kohn published 2006

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Copyright ? Hannah Arendt, 1951, 1956, 1957,1958, 1960, 1961, 1963. 1967, 1968

Introduction copyright ? Jerome Kohn, 2006

Ali rights reserved

The selections in this book are revised and expanded versions of es..ys first published in magaztlles, some

under different titles. “Tradition and the Modern Age,’ a portion of “The Concept of History: Ancient and

Modern,’ and “The Crisis in Education” appeared in The Parti… ” Review; a portion of “The Concept of

HIStory: Ancient and Modern” and a portion of “What is Authority?” in The Review of Politics; “What is

Freedom?” in Chicago Review; a portion of “The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Irs Political Significance”

in Daedalus (Copyright e 1960 by by American Academy of Arts and Sciences); “Truth and Politics” in

The New Yorker; and “The Conquest of Space and the StatUre of Man” in American Scholar.

A portion of “What is Authority?” was first published in Nomo. I: Authority, edited by Carl J. Friedrkh

for the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy, copyright e 19 S8 by the President and FeUows

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Contents

Introduction by JEROME KOHN Vll

BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE

Preface: The Gap Between Past and Future 3
I. TRADITION AND THE MODERN AGE 17
2. THE CONCEPT OF HISTORY: ANCIENT

AND MODERN 41

3. WHAT IS AUTHORITY? 91

4. WHAT IS FREEDOM? 142

5. THE CRISIS IN EDUCATION 170

6. THE CRISIS IN CULTURE: ITS SOCIAL
AND ITS POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE 194

7. TRUTH AND POLITICS 223

8. THE CONQUEST OF SPACE AND THE
STATURE OF MAN 260

Notes 275

Index 295

__________………………………………..
..

4

WHAT IS FREEDOM?

I

To raise the question, what is freedom? seems to be a hopeless
enterprise. It is as though age-old contradictions and antino?
mies were lying in wait to force the mind into dilemmas of log?
ical impossibility so that, depending which horn of the dilemma
you are holding on to, it becomes as impossible to conceive of
freedom or its opposite as it is to realize the notion of a square
circle. In its simplest form, the difficulty may be summed up as
the contradiction between our consciousness and conscience,
telling us that we are free and hence responsible, and our every?
day experience in the outer world, in which we orient ourselves
according to the principle of causality. In all practical and espe?
cially in political matters we hold human freedom to be a self?
evident truth, and it is upon this axiomatic assumption that
laws are laid down in human communities, that decisions are
taken, that judgments are passed. In all fields of scientific and
theoretical endeavor, on the contrary, we proceed according to
the no less self-evident truth of nihil ex nihilo, of nihil sine
causa, that is, on the assumption that even “our own lives are,
in the last analysis, subject to causation” and that if there
should be an ultimately free ego in ourselves, it certainly never
makes its unequivocal appearance in the phenomenal world,
and therefore can never become the subject of theoretical ascer?
tainment. Hence freedom turns out to be a mirage the moment
psychology looks into what is supposedly its innermost do?
main; for “the part which force plays in nature, as the cause of
motion, has its counterpart in the mental sphere in motive as

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