ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with Hannah Arendt’s philosophical contributions on the significance of human plurality, her perspectivist account of truth and its implications. Her thoughts on these themes bring in a dimension most often left out in psychoanalytic conceptualisations of the dynamics of prejudice. Arendt’s version of perspectivism affirms that abstract theories and argument arise from, and reflect, concrete experiences and particular points of view, while emphasising the importance of extending one’s moral imagination. Perspectivism can be combined with metaphysical and moral realism, which allows one to combine an attitude of fallibility, modesty about truth claims, an insight into the open-endedness of one’s enquiry, and a democratic and humanitarian aim of interrogation by the inclusion of more perspectives and standpoints. To illustrate Arendt’s perspectivism in further depth, the chapter presents a historical example of the character it takes in her biography of Rahel Varnhagen.
