Hannah Arendt - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Hannah Arendt (1906-75)The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). The Human Condition (1958).Between Past and Future: Six exercises in political thought (1961). On Revolution (1963).Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Men in Dark Times (1968).Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution (1972)Life of the Mind, unfinished at her death, (1978)Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy. (1992)Responsibility and Judgment. (2003).The Promise of Politics. (2005).

• also called Vita Activa (active life)• distinctions in play that are not used anywhere else in her works• has been discussed widely, both evaluated positively and severely criticised

• continental philosophy?- first read in the Anglo-American context, then also in Germany- much later in France (1980:ies?): for example Lefort- straightforward style of writing, almost no direct references to phenomenological and existentialist discourses (although well-known to Arendt), criticism of MarxismSlide2

Arendt: The Human Condition• the notion of the human condition and ontology• labor, work, action• the domain of the political• vs. the social• power• a situated book on the connections between the human condition and an active life- not the foundation of an ontology or other theoretical or methodological groundwork (?)• the concept of the human condition- combines an ontological perspective with a historical and a diagnostic perspective”The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition” (p

. 2)“What I propose in the following is a reconsideration of the human condition from the vantage point of our newest experiences and our most recent fears ... What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing ... It deals only with the most elementary articulations of the human condition, with those activities that traditionally, as well as according to current opinion, are within the range of every human being” (p. 5)”The human condition comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come into contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence” (

p. 9)Slide3

Arendt: The Human Condition”The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition” (p. 2)“What I propose in the following is a reconsideration of the human condition from the vantage point of our newest experiences and our most recent fears ... What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing ... It deals only with the most elementary articulations of the human condition, with those activities that traditionally, as well as according to current opinion, are within the range of every human being” (p. 5)”The human condition comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come into contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence” (p. 9)

• empirical materiality& embodiedness in general- compare Marx

• diagnostic framework

- most of the discussion connected to this task

• an elementary ontology

- ontology not as such in the main focus

• historical element:

- general thesis (compare Marx): the course of history and human action changes our condition

• the totality of the human condition vs. the ontological elements common to all human beingsSlide4

• the totality of the human condition vs. the ontological elements common to all human beings• includes historical events that have a deep-going effect on what we are- the earthly connection- tools and technological development- traumatic and otherwise crucial historical events - the rise of new forms of society, like democracy and totalitarianism

• Arendt: capabilities that are within the range of human beings- birth and death, natality

and mortality- the biological process of the human body: life- the production of artefacts: worldliness (the creation of permanence)- speech and action: plurality (intersubjective communication) and the creation of the new (essence of natality,

the distinct characteristic of the political)

• so: what are we and how are we to understand ourselves?

- those general ontological elements?

- or through a ‘totalising’ historicized ontology?

• corollary question: can our ontology change?

- compare Heidegger vs. MarxSlide5

Arendt: political philosophy• the re-vitalisation of political activity- towards the background of a diagnosis demonstrating the suppression of ‘authentic’ politics in contemporary society- includes a specific definition of the essence of the political - normativity?: is authentic politics a good thing and a normative aim?• normative content: strongly democratic and egalitarian conception- also: plurality as factual condition and value- justifications?• institutional measurements: - strengthening of the public sphere- council-like activity- checks and balances on power- Arendtian cosmopolitanism: a cross-cultural communicative public sphereSlide6

Arendt: political philosophy• on the distinction between labour, work and action (three modes of active life, vita activa)- all connected with a part of the ontological elements of the human condition- the action-terms used in very specific senses by Arendt, not ordinary usage• labour- reproduction of life, concerned with the vital necessities of life- leaves no other trace than mere reproduction• work- the fabrication of things- including works of art - political institutions?- a condition for history: traces of the past, a permanence anchored outside of the activity• action

- the internal connection between speech and action- action is a mode of activity that goes on between human beings: communicative interaction- internally connected with politics and power- its condition is that of plurality (human multiplicity, equality and distinction)”Human plurality, the basic condition of both action and speech, has the twofold character of equality and distinction. If men were not equal, they could neither understand each other and those who came before them nor plan for the future and foresee the needs of those who will come after them. If men were not distinct, each human being distinguished from any other who is, was or will ever be, they would need neither speech nor action to make themselves understood” (

p . 175-76)Slide7

Arendt: political philosophy• a set of diagnostic assessments• the pre-dominance of administration and issues of the social (welfare)vs. politics as communicative interaction, the beginning of the new and of acting in concert (= power)• the new (20th century) political form of totalitarianism as total dominationvs. democracy as power through communicative interaction in a public sphere• etc.

• the social: issues of individual welfare as steered and administered by a social system=> politics is turned into the management of the socio-economic whole- on the basis of the idea of securing sufficient welfare for all- ‘politics as building the welfare-state’• problems: the idea of good society is given, focused on individual welfare- the possibility of politics diminishes: ‘the end of politics’

• politics, the political?

- a plurality in interaction, togetherness- communication in freedom and concerning the future, the new (not management)Slide8

Jürgen Habermas (1925-)The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) Knowledge and Human Interests (1971, German 1968) Communication and the Evolution of Society (1976) The Theory of Communicative Action (1981) Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (1983) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985) Justification and Application (1991) Between

Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992) The Inclusion of the Other (1996) The Postnational Constellation (1998) Rationality and Religion (1998)

The Future of Human Nature (2003) Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe (2005The Dialectics of

Secularization (2007, with Joseph Ratzinger) Europe. The Faltering Project (2009) The

Crisis

of the European Union

(2012

• preliminary work for the development of the theory of communicative action, 1981

- which in turn develops into the discourse theory of law and democracy, 1992

- partly based on discourse ethics, developed in the 1980:s

- culminates in the deliberative theory of democratic politics, 1992 onwardsSlide9

Habermas: from critical theory to political philosophy• the reconstruction of historical materialism- reconstruction: “taking a theory apart and putting it back together again in a new form in order to attain more fully the goal it has set for itself. This is the normal way … of dealing with a theory that needs revision in many respects but whose potential for stimulation has still not been exhausted” (Habermas, “Historical Materialism and the Development of Normative Structures” in Communication and the Evolution of Society, p. 95)

• a theory of socially organized production≈ the Marxian social ontology

• history of the species≈ a conception of development, with special focus on immanent normative componentsSlide10

Habermas: from critical theory to political philosophy• the reconstruction of historical materialism• a theory of socially organized production≈ the Marxian social ontology

• history of the species≈ a conception of development, with special focus on immanent normative components

• distinction between two types of action:- instrumental action: goal-oriented- communicative action: interaction oriented towards a common view on things (consensus)

• thesis: modern society demands the development of skills in both of these forms- their internal logic is different• opens up for development and rationalisation in two different directions (the two pillars of modern society):- production and instrumental action

- forms of communication or

intersubjective

deliberation (compare Arendt)

= immanent normative potential

• combination of negatively diagnostic thesis and immanent normative potential

-thesis: the colonisation of instrumental rational demands over the communicative-interactive ground of society

- normative potential: our inherent capacity for communicative action,

- as

skillful

language users and modern citizens

=> strengthening of the place and role of communicative action in society