Love in politics: a dialogue between Hannah Arendt and Saint Augustine

Abstract

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) made several references to Saint Augustin (354-430) along her academic literature. The philosopher ideas had been analyzed in depth in her PHD thesis, The Concept of Love in Saint Augustin, in 1929. This book is divided in three distinct parts – love as desire, love in the relation between man and God and love between man and the others – giving Arendt the opportunity to analyze the human existence and the importance of love in the relationship among men and God and among men and the society. This theme, love, came back on the book Men in The Dark Times, where Hannah wrote about the Pope John XXIII, besides some other twentieth century great characters. In her extensive literature, Arendt revealed the way of her thinking about
politics from the Christian philosopher: abandoning oneself to the faith – at the mankind and/or at God – means to deal with the polis things from the position of the other is not considered an enemy, but a brother. Don’t covet the terrestrial things, but deal with politics using the augustinian charitas make us opened to dialog, to conciliation and to acceptation of ours opponents. It is the politics of the active nonviolence on the way of Gandhi, Luther King and Dom Hélder Câmara, archbishop of Recife and Olinda, Brazil, from 1964 to 1885.