The Life Of The Mind

Arendt explains that she has been trying to give a history of the philosophy of the Will. She references Immanuel Kant, who sees sheer spontaneity as something that exists only in thinking, not in the Will. In this construction, thinking serves the Will. German Idealism which followed Kant pushed philosophy toward Being, away from reason. Nietzsche gave primacy to the self by arguing that it is because humans see their own thinking as real that they are able to assign reality to anything else.

The emphasis of this age on progress and science, however, continued to devalue experience through a mistrust of the senses: “While the ‘new philosophy’ proving the inadequacy of our senses had ‘called all in doubt’ and given rise to suspicion and despair, the equally manifest forward movement of knowledge gave rise to an immense optimism as to what man can know and learn” (153). Arendt critiques German Idealism, including Nietzsche and Heidegger, suggesting that much of their work on the Will is speculation and independent of plurality.

Arendt reminds the reader that the question she is exploring here is whether the Will should be considered a faculty of choice between actions, goals, or objects or a faculty for spontaneity.