The aim of this article is to examine the development of the theme of forgiveness in Hannah Arendt’s work, especially in the texts of the 1950s. Throughout the decade, the author substantially modifies her understanding of the relationship of forgiveness with Christianity and progressively places forgiveness, as well as promise and the power at the center of her analysis of the action and its weaknesses. We performed a bibliographic analysis that covers published works and unpublished texts and we seek to carry out a conceptual synthesis of the various characteristics of forgiveness in the author’s work from the examination of the relationship of the action with the necessary reconciliation with its irreversibility.
Forgiveness; Action; Reconciliation; Hannah Arendt; Paul Ricoeur