Love and Saint Augustine
Arendt’s dissertation examines desire, memory and the neighbour in Augustine’s account of love. The English publication incorporates later revisions; it should not be treated as an unchanged translation of the 1929 thesis.
Understanding the text
Arendt’s political thinking emerged from German philosophy, Jewish political experience, exile and her encounter with American public life. She usually resists turning a historical event into an illustration of a timeless system. Follow her distinctions closely, then test the historical examples and exclusions on which they depend. In posthumous collections, an editor’s arrangement must be distinguished from a book planned and completed by Arendt herself.
Key points
- 01
Desire
Seeking what lasts exposes the tension between attachment to worldly persons and orientation toward eternity.
- 02
Neighbour
Love of the neighbour raises the problem of recognising another person without dissolving their particularity into religious categories.
- 03
Beginning
Memory and creation introduce questions of origin that later political work transforms rather than simply repeats.
How to read it
Compare the edition’s account of revisions before connecting the dissertation to natality in The Human Condition.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗