Editor's Introduction

Among the many possible ways to pay tribute to a thinker such as Hannah Arendt, on the fiftieth anniversary of her death, we were decided to adopt an unprecedented approach: an imaginary interview. This choice responds to her desire – expressed repeatedly in her works – to invite future readers to grasp the vitality of her thinking, without stopping at the final results and avoiding the risk of imprisoning her philosophy within systematic and rigid formulas. It is a way of questioning the nature of concepts, the development of arguments and the dynamics of Arendt's reflections, which often germinated in virtuous exchanges of opinion during meetings with her friends – philosophers and poets, historians and writers – who crowded her home...