ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that there is an even deeper affinity to phenomenology in Hannah Arendt's concept of experience, one that goes beyond the important methodological impact of phenomenological hermeneutics with respect to her oft-discussed "techniques" of narration, interpretation, and storytelling. It explicates what characterizes a phenomenological take on experience and how it operates in an Arendtian framework. Arendt famously highlights the disclosing quality in the ancient Greek understanding of appearance, as well as the antique picture of the world as the place where appearances shine forth. The chapter argues that Arendt's phenomenological analysis of the specific logic and texture of the common world is therefore eventually pervaded by a normative tendency. The phenomenological-hermeneutical view helps to elucidate how Arendt treats experience in historical and political contexts. Phenomenology speaks about the "dative of experience" or the "dative of appearance", meaning the "whom" to which the appearances appear in experience.
