Hannah Arendt Religion Analysis

Margaret Canovan argued that Hannah Arendt failed to realize that political opinions too have drawbacks. According to Arendt, different people have different opinions and claims that one political opinion can bring an enhancement on another. Based on this assumption, she adopted Kant’s notion of “judgement,” that is, “to think for the sake of general” into her political thinking. But Habermas rejected her ideas on the ground that it is “monologic.” She seems to have left no room for “rational truth” in political affairs. On the other hand, Canovan also disputed on Habermas’s insistence for fixing his attention on rational consensus. Habermas assumes that “just” society can be institutionalized if political discourse is based on ideal discourse. On this ground, Arendt also argued that Habermas’ idea of placing politics on rational consensus might lead him into a dangerous illusion. Canovan’s concern on the distinctive views of rational communication between Arendt and Habermas however leave a sarcastic remark on the latter because according to her Habermas might have to wait his whole life in
Habermas feels that Hannah Arendt conceptualizes the idea of power as a force that characterizes an individual’s strategy in pursuing one’s own goal in an attempt to reach an understanding. She pictures “power” as equivalent to “violence” which gives individual the authority to manipulate their opponents for realising their purposes. So “power” according to her is considered as “the potential of a common will formed in coercive communication.” While on the other hand, Habermas argued that Hannah Arendt view on “power and violence” needs to be revised or modified because the “system of rights” which requires law for the legitimation of legal order yet again is in need of a force called “communicative force” in order to bring out the accounts of the democracy in the constitutional