Para onde caminha o mundo comum? Uma leitura da relação entre opinião e política no pensamento de Hannah Arendt

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the problem of the relationship between opinion and politics in the thought of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Our point of departure lies in the essays “Philosophy and Politics” (1954) and “Truth and Politics” (1968), together with chapters 1, 2, and 5 of The Human Condition (1958), through which we seek to examine the meaning of politics for the author, the arendtian definition of opinion, its relation to politics, and the limits of its admissibility in the public sphere. We aim to argue that Arendt conceives politics as collective action oriented toward the founding and safeguarding of a public sphere – or common world – favorable to freedom, corresponding to the fundamental human conditions of plurality, natality, and mortality. Within this framework, we argue that opinion, understood as doxa – distinguished both from subjective fantasy and from the singular, absolute truth valid for all – emerges as a genuinely political category, insofar as it presupposes debate, which constitutes the very essence of political existence. We aim to demonstrate that the legitimacy of opinion rests upon its anchoring in factual reality, its sincerity, and tis openness to plurality, thereby enabling confrontation and refinement of viewpoints in the public sphere. We concluded that only authentic opinions contribute to the establishment and preservation of the common world, whereas inauthentic opinions – deceptive, homogenizing, and indifferent to facts – corrode the public sphere and endanger the political life.