PHL217H1 Lecture Notes - Intellectual, Thought Experiment
Document Summary
She was from early on a public intellectual and was both widely read and widely attacked. The attack characterised of her being a self hating jew. Arendt responded to these controversies using two texts. Arendt says in truth and politics modern political lies deals with things that are not secret but open to all: impotent truth vs. deceitful power: a thought experiment. The complete substitution of lie for modern reality becomes plausible. The decisive condition does not exist; this would be a power. Factual truth becomes more malleable to distortion through lying and monopoly. other means. Organized lying was never suspected as being an adequate threat to actual truth. Traditional lies concerned particulars and were never meant to deceive everyone; only intended for specific circumstances and to people who knew they were lying: the vulnerability of factual truth. The two kinds of factual truth; historical truth and rational truth.
