Saying What Is: Herodotus in Hannah Arendt’s Thought

Abstract Hannah Arendt did not live to complete her anticipated work on judgment, a faculty she considered essential for resuscitating political life against the threat of totalitarianism. Scholars have attempted to reconstitute it, primarily through her Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Yet when discussing her turn to judgment, Arendt cites the ancient Greek historian Herodotus as a model, claiming that recovering the ancient sense of histor (judge) is crucial to reclaiming human dignity. Herodotus is in fact central to her depiction of the Greeks throughout her work. Excavating his influence not only helps clarify her theory of judgment; it also reveals how she both distances herself from Heidegger and yet retains certain core agreements. Her reading of Herodotus thus helps delineate the intellectual relationship between two of the twentieth century’s foremost thinkers, while inviting us to reflect on how and why to read the Greeks today.