"The political sphere of life, where speech rules supreme." Hannah Arendt's imaginative reception of Athenian Democracy

The article analyzes Arendt's reception of ancient Greek democracy and elaborates on its imaginative character. The role of isonomia as 'order of equals' serves Arendt as a deconstructive and generative tool at once: on the one hand it contributes to the critique of the modern notion of politics as technical construction of order, on the other to frame politics as a participatory practice that discards the very notion of rule, rather than a procedural measure based on majority.The essay speculates further on isonomia as a dimension of intersubjectivity where freedom and equality are the results, rather than the preconditions, of an originary democratic practice.