When many people are asked to think of the study of philosophy, what often comes to mind is a group of existentialists sitting around asking questions about whether a table is indeed a table, if killing one person to save a group of fifty is moral or perhaps contemplating how to deconstruct the concept of absurdity. While it is true that many renowned philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant or Friedrich Nietzsche, focused much of their work on such these types of meta-questions, it would be unfortunate if this were one’s only understanding of philosophical thought.

Hannah Arendt often refused to call herself a philosopher because she insisted that philosophers concern themselves with “man in the singular” whereas she focused her work on the belief that “Men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world.” Arendt’s political and philosophical theories were concerned less with the a person’s inner deliberations for the sake of understanding the person, and more focused on how such inner workings create the context in which we live. In other words, you would be hard pressed to find Hannah Arendt discussing for hours on end the arbitrary designation of certain words to specific objects.

You may however have found her arguing about the shared antisemitic and imperialistic origination of Stalinist Communism and Nazism. That was a topic more fitting to Arendt’s interest and philosophical approach. In some ways, this approach is what has made Arendt’s work so valuable, and so extraordinarily relevant for generations and to a range of societies and cultures. Her more reality-based and politically pertinent approach to philosophical thought is also what made her somewhat controversial over the course of her career. Most people don’t get too worked up if you tell them a table is in fact not a table, but when you begin talking about revolutions, imperialism and re-conceptualized definitions of evil you are likely going to stir a few pots.

Controversy was somewhat of a constant throughout Arendt’s career. She never shied away from it and in fact knew quite well what she was getting herself into because she understood that. From her first major book, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), to one of her last books, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), Arendt was always willing to articulate her theories without fear of inciting criticism. Perhaps most admirable, however, is the fact that Arendt never engendered criticism from only one side. She was never solely articulating one side’s perspective.

For example, although she had many works that were highly praised and adopted by a more left-wing culture she also received considerable criticism from the left after her 1963 book On Revolution. Her leftist colleagues did not generally appreciate her assertion that the American Revolution, and in fact not the French Revolution, was more deservedly a “revolution” at all. Although in the past she had been accepted in many leftist circles, this idea set Arendt apart and distinguished her as a truly independent thinker and writer.

Before On Revolution, Arendt received a parallel wave of criticism from the other side of the political spectrum. In The Origins of Totalitarianism she documented the frighteningly embedded racism and antisemitism that existed in Western and Central European society and culture. It is clear from these works that Arendt held no political allegiance. Her only allegiance was a commitment to writing and theorizing in a way that raised relevant and honest consideration about the world, its history and the behavior of people in the world, regardless of who may agree or disagree with her proposed conclusions.

Arendt’s focus on the realities of life and not solely the meta-questions of human nature was reflected in her own life. She was not simply an academic, she was also an activist. In 1933, Arendt aided the German Zionist Organization in publicizing the plight of the victims of Nazism and conducted extensive research on antisemitic propaganda. After being jailed herself in Berlin and eventually escaping to Paris she became committed to working with Youth Aliyah to rescue Jewish children from the Third Reich and bring them to Palestine.

Hannah Arendt died in 1975 at the age of 69. In a world with an excess number of thinkers and theorizers, and a serious need for people who are willing and able to actually apply ideas to reality it is a true loss that Arendt is not still with us today. It is difficult to imagine how she might react and what she might write in response to the election of the first African American President of the United States or the inaction of the global community in response to the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, or what she might argue about the way to approach environmental challenges. Whatever she might say we can be sure that it would incite debate, broadly inclusive conversations, varied disagreement, and most of all that would make all of us think.