This article explicates the meaning of the paradox from the perspective of sexual difference, as articulated by Simone de Beauvoir. I claim that the self, the other, and their becoming are sexed in Beauvoir's early literary writing before the question of sexual difference is posed in The Second Sex (1949). In particular, Beauvoir's description of Fran double dagger oise's subjective becoming in the novel She Came to Stay (1943) anticipates her later systematic description of 'the woman in love'. In addition, I argue that the different existential types appearing at the end of The Second Sex (the narcissist, the woman in love, the mystic, and the independent woman) are variations of a specific feminine, historically changing paradox of subjectivity. According to this paradox, women, in a different mode than men, must become what they ontologically "are": beings of change and self-transcendence that have to realise the human condition in their concrete, singular lives. My interpretation draws on Kierkegaardian philosophy of existence, phenomenology, and early psychoanalysis.

In this paper I argue that there is an affinity between the `dissident' in Havel's essay " The Power of the Powerless" and the `spectre' in Derrida's readings of Marx. Both are manifestations of a specific modern temporality that Derrida calls "disjointed", because it is haunted by a revolutionary force and claim for justice. Both also evoke the weak messianic power inherent in Walter Benjamin's historiography and the spectral responsibility recognised by this power, that is, our responsibility for past and future generations. In post-totalitarian Czechoslovakia, the "nonpolitical" dissident community prefigured the renewal of moral experiences of responsibility and solidarity. In contemporary discussions of democracy, the figure of the spectre is a reminder of the significance of the Marxist legacy beyond its ideological doctrine.

Literature has a central place in Hannah Arendt’s writings. In particular, scholars continually discuss the implications of storytelling to her theory of action. This paper takes a different approach by drawing attention to an early literary essay, ”Rilke’s Duino Elegies”, which Arendt co-authored with Günther Stern (later Anders) in 1930. The paper locates the essay in the early twentieth century intellectual response to the ”break in tradition”, arguing that the construction of a poetics dramatized in the Duino Elegies is crucial for judging the originality of Arendt’s philosophical methodology, and the ontological significance of her poetic conception of praise. In this conception, meaning is to be found in things as they appear to human beings capable of using the language designating them poetically. I present my interpretation of the Arendt-Stern essay by contrasting it with Heidegger’s comment on the eighth Elegy from 1942-43 and Blanchot’s reading of Rilke from 1955.

Hannah Arendt (1906−1975) framstår som en av det förra seklets mest egensinniga och inspirerande tänkare. Till hennes mer betydande bidrag till den politiska teorin hör hennes analys av totalitarismens ursprung och hennes kritik av en intellektuell tradition som varit ointresserad av att på allvar reflektera över politiska händelser och de-ras ofta oförutsedda filosofiska och mänskliga betydelse. Om det finns en övergripande problematik som utmärker hennes tänkande handlar den om att återvinna och ge utrymme åt en erfarenhet av politik som hotar att uppslukas av den moderna statens ekonomiska och sociala orga-nisering av samhället. Ett annat återkommande tema är den spänningsfyllda relationen mellan politik och filosofi, mellan handlande och tänkande. De bidrag som samlats i den här boken kretsar på olika sätt kring Arendts syn på tänkandet, handlandet och det politiska. Hennes politiska ideal fungerar som en tanke-väckande motbild till dagens utslätade politiska debatt. Och det är kanske just därför som det är så stimulerande att läsa denna fria tänkare; Selbstdenker som det heter på tyska. Som läsare bjuds man in till att själv tänka vidare utifrån det Arendt tänkt.