Ontological Contradictions of Human Rights in Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought: From the Aporia of Statelessness to the Redefinition of the Right to Have Rights

Poorzaki, Giti; Ansari, ,Mansour

doi:10.22034/isj.2025.564964.2418

Ontological Contradictions of Human Rights in Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought: From the Aporia of Statelessness to the Redefinition of the Right to Have Rights

Document Type : Original Independent Original Article

Authors

Giti Poorzaki ¹

,Mansour Ansari ²

¹ Department of Political Thought in Islam, Imam Khomeini and Islamic Revolution Research Institute

² Department of Political Thought, Imam Khomeini and Islamic Revolution Research Institute

10.22034/isj.2025.564964.2418

Abstract

in recent decades, Hannah Arendt’s perspective on human rights has increasingly attracted attention in philosophical and political scholarship. Extensive studies from various angles—ranging from political philosophy to postcolonial theory—have critically examined Arendt’s understanding of human rights. This article, adopting a conceptual-philosophical and ethical-anthropological approach, seeks to provide a comprehensive reinterpretation and reconstruction of Arendt’s critique of human rights. The central research question is why Arendt fundamentally opposed the conventional concept of human rights, and how this opposition can be understood within the broader context of her intellectual framework. According to the analysis presented, Arendt’s critique of human rights is ontologically rooted: modern human rights, constructed upon the abstraction of the human subject, collapse in the face of twentieth-century historical experiences—particularly statelessness and displacement. Only through a return to the true meaning of politics—as the sphere of action, freedom, plurality, and the manifestation of human beings in the shared world—can fundamental human rights be effectively defended. The research employs an analytical-descriptive methodology, relying on conceptual, phenomenological analysis and close readings of

Keywords

human rights"

Hannah Arendt"

statelessness"

the right to have rights"

political action"

Subjects