ABSTRACT
This chapter retells Plato’s Republic, as if Socrates had read Hannah Arendt. In this version, Socrates rejects tying philosophy to work in favor of a free philosophy that judges, thinks and wills without the banister of truth. The story illustrates Arendt’s attempt to synthesize the moments of the other chapters. She hoped that people could enter a ubiquitous moment in which they find a provisional meaning for what appears. This search, Arendt thought, could produce a modern sort of conscience that can operate without the broken authorities of tradition, truth and religion. She described it as a “beaten path of thought” that is oriented by both past and future, faithfulness and reason, a moment in which we are free of the tyranny and nihilisms of the 20th century.
