Una graduada de la Universidad de Navarra publica un libro sobre una filósofa alemana perseguida por su condición de judía
A graduate of the University of Navarra publishes a book on a German philosopher persecuted for her Jewishness
His life is a paradigm of the twentieth century; he always said that he was not dedicated to Philosophy, but to understand
Teresa Gutiérrez de Cabiedes, a graduate in Journalism and PhD in Philosophy from the University of Navarra, has published El hechizo de la comprensión, a novelized biography of the German thinker Hannah Arendt, persecuted for being Jewish. To this end, she has dedicated eight years of her life to researching and writing about the author. "Her life is a paradigm of the 20th century. She always said that she was not dedicated to Philosophy, but to understanding", explains the graduate of the University of Navarra at reference letter to degree scroll of the book.
Forty years after her death, one can detect wounds in Hannah Arendt's life that are still open today. "She was a 'sans papiers' who landed in the United States with 25 dollars in her pocket," says Teresa Gutiérrez de Cabiedes. She lived in a world in crisis, a term she referred to as "times of darkness." But she was convinced that one human life could change the course of history. "For that reason she did not commit suicide when she was in a French concentration camp, as her friend Walter Benjamin did", Teresa Gutiérrez de Cabiedes points out.
Her biography of Arendt, the first originally published on Spanish, is aimed at a general audience. "It was worthwhile to make her life accessible to many people. Moreover, she not only conveys interesting, but also humanly lived thought," he explains. Arendt was Heidegger's lover, who eventually rejected her because she was Jewish. That made Arendt disown the Philosophy, as she could not understand that an intellectual of Heidegger's stature could be anti-Semitic. "As a philosopher, she did not want to elaborate a more or less theoretical system of thought, but a vital thought, from life and for life," she explains.
The book also delves into Hannah Arendt's journalistic facet. "It is considered that she did it for a living when she arrived in the U.S., but it is one of the facets that best explains the unity that exists between her life and her work: she needed to intervene in public life." As a journalist he covered for the New York Times the trial of a Nazi criminal, Adolf Eichmann. "He concluded that he was not diabolical, but thoughtless," says Teresa Gutiérrez de Cabiedes.