Hannah Arendt’s aesthetic approach to politics is regarded as frequently reflecting the anti-political substitution of nonpolitical concerns for political ones characteristic of the German tradition from Schiller to Heidegger and beyond. Arendt’s relationship to this tradition can be understood as squarely calling into question her central claim to have rehabilitated the political. This paper examines the relationship between Arendt’s and Heidegger’s political thought in light of the distinction between an aestheticism and an aesthetic approach. Two issues are at stake: can such a distinction help distance Arendt’s aesthetic approach from those elements we find so troubling in Heidegger’s thinking and his relation to politics? Can this help us to recuperate a certain aspect of German political thought which is reflected in Arendt’s work?

Some decisions can be made employing closed systems of practical reasoning. Other decisions require open systems of practical reasoning. These kinds of practical reasoning differ epistemically. Closed systems of practical reasoning can rely on thinking with a basis that is epistemically robust. Open systems of practical reasoning must also allow for thinking with a basis that is epistemically slight. In making moral and prudential decisions about what we are to make of our lives, we use open systems of practical reasoning that proceed by precept. Precepts are generalizations for use as premises in practical reasoning that may only be indirectly tied to empirical evidence. Intelligent selection of precepts may come from education in the arts and sciences. The twin towers of a liberal education offer the best hope for judgment in the practical reasoning that may help us to make the moral and prudential decisions that are our concern.

Two opposite tendencies characterize the intellectual and political developments in our world as a whole at the end of the twentieth century: on the one hand, we promote respect for human rights, i.e., for certain “universal” norms; on the other, we promote equal respect for all cultures, i.e., respect also for sets of parochial, “relative” norms, which are not only often discrepant among themselves, but often discrepant vis-à-vis human rights as well. In light of this, I argue that we need paideia for a sagacious implementation of human rights in the twenty-first century.

Ce discours va partir des livres VI and VII de la République de Platon pour montrer en quoi il gouverne encore notre projet d’éducation philosophique de l’humanité, mais aussi en quoi il n’est pas seul représentatif de la conception grecque antique, à l’intérieur de laquelle sont nés plusiers modèles concurrents, générateurs d’une alternative peut-être encore instructive pour la discussion actuelle.