Epistemic and Linguistic Dimensions of Propaganda: Lessons from Hannah Arendt
No. 96 | 2026-04-23Author(s)
-
Miriam JeradeUniversidad Adolfo Ibáñez, ChileORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0113-5081
Abstract
This article proposes an analytical framework that approaches propaganda as a discursive technology capable of undermining the foundations of democratic deliberation. Building on Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and engaging with contemporary discussions of propaganda, the analysis focuses on its epistemic and linguistic (pragmatic) dimensions. It examines how particular discursive, visual, and verbal practices operate as subordinating speech acts and genocidal language games. The article further traces the links between propaganda, advertising rhetoric, and scientistic discourse, showing that the mechanism identified by Arendt extends beyond totalitarian movements and continues to pose a threat to the persistence of democratic deliberation.
References
Abramson, Kate. 2014. “Turning Up the Lights on Gaslighting”. Philosophical Perspectives 28 (1): 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12046
Adorno, Theodor W. 2005. Ensayos sobre la propaganda fascista. Psicoanálisis del antisemitismo. Buenos Aires: Paradiso.
Ahmed, Sara. 2017. La política cultural de las emociones. Ciudad de México: UNAM.
Althusser, Louis. 2003. “Ideología y aparatos ideológicos de Estado”. En Ideología: un mapa de la cuestión, compilado por Slavoj Zizek, 115-156. Buenos Aires: FCE.
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2021. “Epistemic Bubbles and Authoritarian Politics”. En Political Epistemology, editado por Michael Hannon y Elizabeth Edenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arendt, Hannah. 1994. “Understanding and Politics”. En Essays in Understanding, 307-327. Nueva York: Schocken Books.
Arendt, Hannah. 1997. ¿Qué es política?. Barcelona: Paidós.
Arendt, Hannah. 1998. La condición humana. Barcelona: Paidós.
Arendt, Hannah. 2002. La vida del espíritu. Barcelona: Paidós.
Arendt, Hannah. 2005. Sobre la violencia. Madrid: Alianza.
Arendt, Hannah. 2006. Los orígenes del totalitarismo. Madrid: Alianza.
Arendt, Hannah. 2012. Conferencias sobre la filosofía política de Kant Barcelona: Paidós.
Arendt, Hannah. 2017. Verdad y mentira en la política. Barcelona: Página Indómita.
Beaver, David y Jason Stanley. 2023. The Politics of Language. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bordonaba Plou, David, Víctor Fernández Castro y José Ramón Torices, eds. 2022. The Political Turn in Analytic Philosophy. Reflections on Social Injustice and Oppression. Vol. 11. Berlín; Boston: De Gruyter.
Breul, Martin. 2022. “Lies, Bullshit, or Propaganda? Hannah Arendt, Deliberative Democracy, and the Fight against Post-Truth Politics”. Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society 8: 52-66.
Cavarero, Adriana. 2022. Democracia surgente. Notas sobre el pensamiento político de Hannah Arendt. Barcelona: Herder.
Chomsky, Noam y Edward S. Herman. 2011. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Nueva York: Knopf Doubleday.
Derfner, Larry. 2014. “‘Pallywood’: A Particularly Ugly Ethnic Slur”. +972 Magazine, 15 de noviembre. https://www.972mag.com/a-particularly-ugly-ethnic-slur-pallywood/
Di Pego, Anabella. 2016. “La comprensión como perspectiva metodológica en Hannah Arendt”. Andamios. Revista de Investigación Social 13 (31): 61-83. https://doi.org/10.29092/uacm.v13i31.427
Dudai, Ron. 2025. “How Israelis Turned Atrocity Denial into an Art”. +972 Magazine, 22 de agosto. https://www.972mag.com/israelis-atrocity-denial-gaza/
Ellul, Jacques. 1973. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. Nueva York: Vintage Books.
Goebbels, Joseph. 1935. Der Angriff. Aufsaetze aus der Kampfzeit. Alemania: Eher Verlag [edición digital]. https://archive.org/details/DerAngriff-AufsaetzeAusDerKampfzeit/page/n4/mode/1up
Haslanger, Sally. 2012. “Ideology is a Moral Issue”. Carus Lecture. https://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/papers/HaslangerCarus2hdo.pdf
Haslanger, Sally. 2017. “Racism, Ideology, and Social Movements”. Res Philosophica 94 (1): 1. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/116159
Haslanger, Sally. 2019. “Rognition as a Social Skill”. Australasian Philosophical Review 3 (1): 5-25. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/130237
Haslanger, Sally. 2021. The Aquinas Lecture 2021. Ideology in Practice. What does Ideology Do?. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
Henriquez Martins, Mariana. 2021. “Modern Age, Thoughtlessness and Nazi Germany Propaganda in Hannah Arendt’s Work”. Journal of Advanced Research in Social Sciences 4 (2): 37-45. https://doi.org/10.33422/jarss.v4i2.636
Hyska, Megan. 2021. “Propaganda, Irrationality, and Group Agency”. En The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, editado por Michael Hannon y Jeroen de Ridder, 226-235. Londres: Routledge.
Iyengar, Shanto, Gaurav Sood y Yphtach Lelkes. 2012. “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization”. Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (3): 405-431. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfs038
Klemperer, Victor. 2001. La lengua del Tercer Reich. Apuntes de un filólogo. Barcelona: Minúscula.
“Los protocolos de los sabios de Sion”. (1903) 2008. Valladolid: Maxtor.
Maitra, Ishani. 2012. “Subordinating Speech”. En Speech & Harm. Controversies over Free Speech, editado por Ishani Maitra y Mary Kate McGowan, 94-120. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Medina, José. 2018. “Resisting Racist Propaganda: Distorted Visual Communication and Epistemic Activism”. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 56: 50-75. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12301
Mill, John Stuart. 2018. Sobre la libertad. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.
Mills, Charles W. 2005. “Ideal Theory as Ideology”. Hypatia 20 (3): 165-184. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2005.tb00493.x
Mills, Charles W. 2017. “Ideology”. En The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, editado por José Medina, James Kidd y Gaile Pohlhaus, Londres: Routledge.
Mills, Charles W. 2019. “Ideology and Social Cognition: The Challenge of Theorizing ‘Speciesism’”. Australasian Philosophical Review 3 (1): 60-70. https://doi.org/10.1080/24740500.2019.1705233
Muñoz Sánchez, María Teresa. 2024. “La teoría del juicio arendtiana y la política de las emociones”. Pescadora de Perlas. Revista de Estudios Arendtianos 3 (3): 99-116.
Quaranto, Anne y Jason Stanley. 2021. “Propaganda”. En The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language, editado por Justin Khoo y Rachel Katharine Sterken, 125-146. Londres: Routledge.
Rivas Molina, Federico. 2025. “‘Idiota’, ‘imbécil’, ‘débil mental’: el gobierno de Milei resucita insultos para clasificar la discapacidad”. El País, 27 de febrero. https://elpais.com/argentina/2025-02-27/idiota-imbecil-debil-mental-el-gobierno-de-milei-resucita-insultos-para-clasificar-la-discapacidad.html
Saab, Sheren Falah. 2024. “To Believe a Gazan Who Talks About Hunger Is to Believe the Other Side, and Doubt Your Own”. Haaretz, 11 de diciembre. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-11/ty-article-magazine/.premium/to-believe-a-gazan-talking-about-hunger-is-to-believe-the-other-side-and-doubt-your-own/00000193-b0c8-d37b-adbf-f0cdf4d10000
Saul, Jennifer. 2024. Dogwhistles & Figleaves. How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Soffer-Roth, Natasha. 2020. “Why the ‘Pallywood’ Myth Endures”. +972 Magazine, 15 de octubre. https://www.972mag.com/pallywood-trope-second-intifada/
Stalnaker, Robert. 2002. “Common Ground”. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 701-721. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020867916902
Stanley, Jason. 2015. How Propaganda Works. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stanley, Jason. 2016. “Beyond Lying. Donald Trump’s Authoritarian Reality”. The New York Times, 5 de noviembre. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/opinion/beyond-lying-donald-trumps-authoritarian-reality.html
Táíwò, Olúfemi O. 2018. “The Empire Has No Clothes”. Disputatio 10 (51): 305-330.
Tirrell, Lynne. 2012. “Genocidal Language Games”. En Speech and Harm. Controversies over Free Speech, editado por Ishani Maitra y Mary Kate McGowan, 174-221. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Turkenburg, Emma y Patrick Van Erkel. 2025. “Ideology and Affective Polarization”. En Handbook of Affective Polarization, editado por Mariano Torcal y Eelco Harteveld, 214-227. Ámsterdam: Elgar.
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Miriam Jerade
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.