The first work that gave birth to Hannah Arendt, the most outstanding political philosopher of the 20th century.
Love: The starting point and destination of the philosopher who spoke of the "banality of evil."

"The Concept of Love and Saint Augustine" is the doctoral dissertation of Hannah Arendt, a master of modern political philosophy, and her first work as a philosopher.
It is the origin of Arendt's political philosophy and at the same time leads to its destination.
This is not only because, later in life, as he entered a period of intellectual maturity, he revised the paper to reflect his more developed thinking while preparing it for publication.
The core theme of this thesis, ‘love of neighbor,’ can be said to be the prototype of ‘love of the world,’ which is the main topic of his later works.
Furthermore, the concept of the public sphere as a “world” that people construct together, which is central to his political philosophy, is sprouting in this paper.
Furthermore, the fact that the problem of St. Augustine's "free will" addressed here occupies a significant portion of her last work, The Life of the Mind, confirms that this work has an unmistakable presence that connects the very beginning and the very end of Arendt's entire "line of thought."

This book is an important and meaningful work that allows us to see the point where Arendt's early and later thoughts meet, but it was almost forgotten after Arendt stopped revising her doctoral dissertation. Twenty years after Arendt's death, her students Joanna Scott and Judith Stark compiled the original and revised versions, added their own commentaries, and published it as a single volume.
This book, which was translated and published in Korea in 2013 but went out of print, has been re-released for readers through a more accurate and meticulous translation by the original translator, Professor Seo Yu-gyeong.
This will be a welcome book not only for existing readers of Arendt's work, but also for those who are taking their first steps into Arendt's world of thought.

Therefore, the object of fear is fear itself.
Even if we believe that there is nothing to fear and that death is not evil, the fact remains that fear exists (i.e., that all living things avoid death).
The bottom line is, “Either the evil we fear exists, or the evil is fear itself.” The security of not having the fear of possessions is only effective where there is nothing to lose.


It is this fearlessness that love seeks.
Love as longing is defined by its goal, which is freedom from fear (metu carere).
Since life is constantly 'diminishing' and losing itself as it approaches death, it is this experience of loss that must guide the decision about the appropriate object of love, amandu.

--- p.71

The more he retreats into himself and tries to withdraw his ego from the dispersion and distraction of the world, the more he becomes “a problem to himself quaestio mihi factus sum.” (…) What Augustine expects from God is an answer to the question, “Who am I?”—the certainty of an answer to this question that all previous philosophy had taken for granted.
To put it another way, Augustine's new way of exploring himself ultimately led him to turn his attention to God.
He did not ask God to reveal to him the mysteries of the universe or the difficulties of Being.
Instead, he asks God to 'hear about himself' and 'know about himself'.
--- p.100~101

Through recollection, man discovers a double 'frontier' of human existence.
As we have seen, memory has the function of recalling the past and making it present in the mind.
In this process of re-presentation, the past not only finds its place among other present things, but is also transformed into a possibility of a future.
By remembering some past joy, we can hope for its return in the future.
Just as memories of past sorrows instill in us fear of impending disaster.
This is why the return to one's origins (redire ad creatorem) can be understood as a reference (se referre ad finem) that simultaneously anticipates its end.
--- p.165

What defines human existence by making present and holding both past and future, that is, memories and the expectations derived from them, is the present in which past and present meet simultaneously in the same space.
This human possibility gives humans a share in the 'unchangeable' state.
The most distant past and the most distant future are not only, objectively speaking, the same double 'frontier' in human life, but can also be realized in that way while humans are still alive.
Only man, and no other mortal, lives towards his ultimate origin while continuing his life towards the final boundary of death.
Humans can focus their entire lives on the present through memory and anticipation, and thus participate in eternity, and thus become 'happy' even in this life.
--- p.167~168

Our neighbors are not only reminders of our own past, but also signals of our own danger.
Therefore, far from being nullified by the message of salvation, equality is explicitly stated in some clear sense.
The commandment to love one's neighbor contains equal clarity.
The reason why a person should love his neighbor is because his neighbor is fundamentally his equal, and both he and his neighbor share that guilty past.
(…) Moreover, one should love one’s neighbor not because of one’s own sin, which was in fact the source of equality, but because of the grace of God which has manifested itself in him, as in yourself, tamquam te ipsum.
Equality acquires a new meaning by becoming explicit, because it is also equality in grace.
--- p.268

The message of salvation reached everyone not simply from outside the other world, but against the other world.
(…) Through charity, the earthly city itself has been abolished, but the believer is still called to fight against it.
Since complete isolation of the believer is impossible, the past remains and operates.
He cannot act separately, but only with or against others.
Even though believers are far from the other world, they continue to live in it.
--- p.270

Only through this connection, which stems from this dual origin, can we understand the relevance of our neighbors.
The other, as a member of the human race, is our neighbor, and within this authority, the position of the other becomes clear along with the clarity that is the result of the isolation realized by the individual.
The simple common presence of believers based on a self-identifying God becomes a common faith and eventually a community of believers.
In view of these facts, human existence is understood to derive from a dual source.

--- p.282