So I write for this nonfiction blog and they occasionally send me books that they want me to look at or write about in the coming months. In the last package from them, I was expecting one book (on the Arab Spring) and found that, but also a copy of The Last Interview and Other Conversations: Hannah Arendt, part of a series from Melville House. I felt like the luckiest little quasi-intellectual this side of the East River! Herewith, a bit of her talking about her background with German journalist and politician Gunter Gaus.
GG: You studied in Marburg, Heidelberg, and Freiberg with professors Heidegger, Bultmann, and Jaspers; with a major in philosophy and minors in theology and Greek. How did you come to choose those subjects?
HA: You know, I have often thought about that. I can only say that I always knew I would study philosophy. Ever since I was fourteen years old.
GG: Why?
HA: I read Kant. You can ask, Why did you read Kant? For me the question was somehow: I can either study philosophy or I can drown myself, so to speak. But not because I didn’t love life! No! As I said before––I had this need to understand… the need to understand was there very early. You see, all the books were in the library at home; one simply took them from the shelves.
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