TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: Reading Hannah Arendt with Roger Berkowitz

Site • RSS • Apple Podcasts
100 episodes
2023 to 2026
Median: 55 minutes
Collection: Philosophy

Description (podcaster-provided):

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

This podcast centers on guided, close readings of Hannah Arendt’s major works, using them as a lens for examining enduring questions in political life and the humanities. Across the episodes, host Roger Berkowitz works through Arendt’s arguments in detail—often section by section—drawing out the conceptual distinctions that structure her thought, such as freedom versus liberation, power versus authority, meaning versus truth, and the difference between the social and the political. The discussions frequently connect Arendt’s philosophical investigations of thinking and willing to practical concerns about judgment, responsibility, and how people act together in public.

A recurring focus is the fragility of democratic life and the institutions that sustain it. The podcast explores revolutions and constitutional “foundings,” the role of durable political structures, and the conditions under which public freedom and participation can flourish. It also takes up the relationship between truth and politics, including how factual reality can be distorted through propaganda, image-making, and organized lying, and what roles journalism, law, universities, and other institutions play in maintaining a shared world.

Alongside the Arendt readings, bonus conversations bring in writers, historians, classicists, social scientists, and activists to consider how Arendt’s ideas illuminate contemporary issues: polarization and “post-truth” politics, civil disobedience, deliberative democracy and citizen assemblies, totalitarian trends, friendship and public discourse, identity and cultural politics, technology and artificial intelligence, and the tension between confronting horrors and sustaining joy or “love of the world” in dark times. The overall tone is interpretive and inquiry-driven, aiming to understand Arendt’s texts while testing their relevance against current political and cultural pressures.