Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) is the leading thinker of freedom in the 20th century. In a conversation with the Japanese Arendt scholar Aya Ogata, intellectual historian Matthias Bormuth will outline key stages in which the philosopher developed her concept of freedom in contrast to the totalitarian systems of the 20th century. The event will take place on April 22 at 19:00 at the Goethe-Institut Tokyo. These stages range from her beginnings in Germany with Martin Heidegger, to her exile in France and the United States, and finally to her role as a transatlantic thinker in the postwar years, during which she engaged with important interlocutors such as the New York Intellectuals and Karl Jaspers in Switzerland.

Historically significant is Arendt’s engagement with the Socratic dialogue, linked to the idea of political plurality. The conversation also recalls the European Enlightenment, which for Arendt marked the birth of modern revolutionary thinking. For the political theorist, freedom is therefore both a universal right and a special obligation to think responsibly for oneself.

Among Arendt’s core questions is the danger posed to free dialogue—both with oneself and with others—by social ideologies and modern technologies. According to her reflections, the freedom to be free must be won anew every day by returning to both private and public spaces of thought, as her life and work demonstrate.