Abstract

The dissertation explores the idea of freedom as expressed in Hannah Arendt's understanding of separated public and private realms. Beginning within an Arendtian-conceived, world-bounded contemplation, a foundation for understanding the history of human freedom is established. While the realization of freedom in primitive times did not depend upon a separate public/private, the Greek vision of freedom was essentially based on the creation of the polis and oikos, Arendt's view of politics draws much from the greatness of the Greek polis, and her theory appeals for a revitalization of the public realm in order to restore the meaning of freedom to the human condition. However, by speculating back into history we find the arrival of separated realms in the Greek world was not an expression of the inviolability of the public and private as such, but rather an expression of the inviolability of freedom. When this realization is employed to our present situation, the keeping of the public and private becomes secondary to the creation and preservation of freedom. What freedom might mean in today's complex economy is finally considered