Arendt begins her most general and comprehensive account of The Human Condition by reminding her readers of the distinction Aristotle draws at the beginning of his Politics between ‘‘activity’’ (political and philosophical), which is undertaken for its own sake, and ‘‘production,’’ which is undertaken primarily by slaves in order to provide the necessities of life (1958: 22-78). In the ancient polis, ‘‘production’’ belonged to the ‘‘private’’ sphere of the household or oikos. Obviously the source of the name of the modern science of ‘‘economics,’’ the oikos was the association devoted to accumulation of the goods and provision of services necessary to sustain life. Only those free from the need to provide such necessities were able to enter and engage in public life, and only those who engaged in public debates were considered to be truly or fully human. Like everything associated merely with bodily preservation, ‘‘private’’ life was thought to be properly hidden.
Modern people no longer have a sense, much less an understanding of the character and importance of‘‘public’’ or distinctly political life, because public and private concerns have gradually been merged into the ‘‘social.’’ After Rousseau, the private sphere came to be associated particularly with ‘‘intimacy’’ and affection, and the provision of necessary goods and services or ‘‘economics’’ became the chief concern of‘‘public’’ business.
Regarded merely as needy or even infinitely desirous animals, Arendt saw, human beings do not differ much from one another. The elevation of economic concerns to the top of the public agenda has thus been one of the major factors which have produced modern ‘‘mass’’ society and the condition for the emergence of totalitarian regimes.
Human beings distinguish themselves from each other as well as from other animals by means of their speech, not the labor or work by means of which they satisfy their needs and transform the world in which they find themselves. But Arendt did not simply endorse the Aristotelian definition of the human being as z(ion politikon or echon logon, that is, a political or rational animal, who actualizes its natural potential only by participating in public deliberations about what is good and bad, just and unjust, useful or useless. She objected to Aristotle’s definition of the human species as a kind of being, a ‘‘what’’ rather than a ‘‘who.’’ She thought that human beings differ from all other animals inasmuch as each human being differs from all others from birth. Each has his or her own experience and perspective on the world. These differences become manifest only in speech, however, and human beings develop their ability to speak only in relation to others. We test the accuracy of our own perceptions and conclusions about ourselves as well as about other things in the world by comparing them with the opinions of others who see the same things from a slightly different perspective. Arendt did not think, therefore, that we should follow Aristotle and talk about human ‘‘nature.’’ On the contrary, she emphasized, human life is thoroughly conditioned, and the conditions - like the polis or the various languages human beings speak - are products of human artifice.1
Human beings develop and display their distinctive traits - both as individuals and as a species - only by engaging in what Arendt calls political ‘‘action,’’ that is, by articulating and exchanging individual views in public. But people do not necessarily or always establish and maintain the kinds of‘‘public spaces’’ which make such action possible, even though the requirements for establishing the public space are relatively simple. A group of people need simply mark off the boundaries of a certain territory and establish a set of rules or laws that allow exchanges of opinions. The ancient Greeks established poleis when they acquired enough leisure to reflect on the evanescence of human life. The individuals who had persuaded others to follow them and their opinions wanted their preeminence and deeds to be remembered. Only a community that reproduced itself and so lasted beyond the lifetime of a single generation could promise such individuals that they could achieve immortal glory by living on in the memories of those who came later.
Arendt admits that actual historical examples of the kind of‘‘action,’’ that is, public speech, she calls ‘‘political’’ are rare. It occurred in Greek poleis, at the founding of the American Republic, and the beginning of the French Revolution, in the first soviets and at the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution.
There are three reasons, she suggests, why ‘‘politics’’ properly understood occurs so infrequently and tends to degenerate rather quickly into more utilitarian forms of action. First, the distinctive character of political ‘‘action’’ or activity is rarely, and even then incompletely, understood. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans were confused, as shown by the words they used to describe it. Unlike modern languages, Arendt observed, Greek and Latin have two words that both mean ‘‘to act.’’ The Greek verbs archein (‘‘to begin,’’ ‘‘to lead,’’ finally ‘‘to rule’’) and prattein (‘‘to pass through,’’ ‘‘to achieve,’’ ‘‘to finish’’) correspond to the two Latin verbs agere (‘‘to set into motion,’’ ‘‘to lead’’) and gerere (whose original meaning is ‘‘to bear’’). The ancients seem to have thought that each action was divided into two parts, the beginning, made by a single person, and the achievement, in which many could join. Over time, however, ‘‘the word[s] that originally designated only the second part of action, its achievement... became the accepted word[s] for action in general, whereas the words designating the beginning of action... came to mean chiefly ‘to rule’ and ‘to lead’ ’’ (1958: 189).
The second reason the distinctive character of political action is easily misunderstood and, consequently, lost is that people want to see concrete results. Because each and every human being is different, the results of their interactions are essentially unpredictable. And because human beings are individually weak, they want to achieve security along with the order that makes exchanges of opinions possible. ‘‘Thus the role of the beginner and leader, who was a primus inter pares (in the case of Homer, a king among kings), changed into that of a ruler,’’ who had the prerogative of giving commands to subjects who were obliged to obey them.
Third, political action becomes identified with rule based on force, because everyone cannot take part in public debate, certainly not all of the time. Most people have been excluded from taking part in the decisions that determine much ofthe course of their lives by being forced to provide goods and services for those with the power to make the laws.
It is not clear what the content of the ‘‘political action’’ or speech Arendt praises actually was or is. ‘‘What is it that they talked about together in that endless palaver in the agora?’’ quipped Hanna Pitkin (1981). In fact, readers of ancient Greek texts know that they talked primarily about questions Arendt explicitly excludes: Who should rule? How goods should be acquired and distributed, or what is just? Should the city go to war or remain at peace? Arendt excludes such topics, because they involve the realm of necessity, that is, the provision and distribution of goods needed to preserve human life and for the use of force. Debates about such topics did not constitute true displays of human freedom and individuality embodied in what she called ‘‘political action.’’
Although Arendt differs from Aristotle both about the natural basis and the content of ‘‘political’’ debate, she could nevertheless have obtained a good deal of support for what she says is distinctively ‘‘political’’ from the Politics. In the first place, Aristotle observes (1255b20, 1259b1-5, 1277b7-10), political relations exist among equals. Since everyone cannot rule at once, fellow citizens rule and are ruled in turn. Second, Aristotle points out (1277b25-9), it is necessary to hold public office and make public decisions in order to demonstrate one’s own practical wisdom or phroneisis. Third, Aristotle emphasizes (1254b3-5), political rule occurs by means of logos (speech or reason). It does not rest on superior force like the power of a despot or master over his slaves. (See Depew, this volume, chapter 26.)
Arendt probably chose not to cite Aristotle in her description of political ‘‘action’’ because he continues to speak in terms of ‘‘rule.’’ He does not emphasize the importance of individuals showing who they are by articulating their opinions in front of others to see whether they can persuade others. He suggests, moreover, that some people or parts of a political community will always rule others.2
Arendt’s understanding of political ‘‘action’’ is more egalitarian than Aristotle’s. She does not recognize the existence of natural differences between slaves and masters or between men and women, nor does she suggest that political participation should be restricted on the basis of such differences. (See Depew, chapter 26.) She has nevertheless been criticized for her ‘‘elitist conception of great action as being incomplete unless it is accompanied by great speech.’’ Like Nietzsche, Sheldon Wolin observes (2004: 455-6), Arendt thought that the value and meaning of human life was determined by its highest examples. Following Nietzsche, Arendt was, like Strauss, concerned above all to see that the conditions under which truly great individuals could emerge and flourish were not forgotten or destroyed.
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that Arendt or her thought were fundamentally ‘‘fascist,’’ because of the Nietzschean roots. On the contrary, it was her ‘‘Nietzschean’’ concern about the importance of recognizing and preserving the individual differences that emerged in the contests (agones) characteristic of the Greek polis that distinguished her political thought from that of her mentor, Martin Heidegger. As Dana Villa has shown in his masterful study Arendt and Heidegger (1996: 171-240), Arendt took her understanding of distinctively human existence as an ‘‘open space’’ in which ‘‘truth’’ appears to those who exist ‘‘with others’’ in a shared ‘‘world’’ from her one-time teacher. By explicitly politicizing Heidegger’s analysis of human existence in Being and Time, however, Arendt changed it significantly. Heidegger had emphasized the difference between a shared but ‘‘inauthentic’’ understanding of things, which gradually loses its basis in genuine insight and becomes ever more flat as it is repeated without thought in empty, everyday chatter, and the ‘‘authentic’’ insight individuals acquire into the fundamental uncertainty and non-necessity of their own existence if they reflect on the basis of the underlying anxiety they feel. Such individuals have the option only of intentionally resolving to persist in the way of life of the people at the time and place in which they happen to have been born as a matter of their own choice rather than as the result of extrinsic accident. They do not have the power to change the fundamental character of their community or its dominant opinions. By emphasizing the differences among individuals that emerge in political debates, Arendt not merely brought the description of a distinctively human existence closer to its origin in Aristotle’s Politics and so made it more accurate. She also and more fundamentally emphasized the divisions within every people or polity and thus gave a more concrete account of the source of the ‘‘strife’’ Heidegger argued was responsible for creating the ‘‘open’’ space and the freedom that comes with it (Heidegger 1959). For Arendt public speech was capable not merely of disclosing the truth, which revealed the distinctive character of each and every individual; it was capable of creating a new public, more generally shared understanding of the world.
Arendt followed Heidegger in arguing that Plato changed his readers’ understanding of ‘‘truth’’ and the highest form of human existence, so that the original experience of both was gradually forgotten. But where Heidegger emphasized the change from an understanding of truth as disclosure ( a-letheia) to correctness (in the correspondence of being to idea), Arendt emphasized the change in the understanding of the relation between politics and philosophy. She attributed the change not to Plato’s reworking of the original understanding of ‘‘eidos’ as shape or appearance, but to his reaction to a specific event - the trial and condemnation of Socrates. (Cf. Arendt 1990: 81; Heidegger 1962.)
In a lecture she delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 1954, but which was not published until 1990, Arendt suggested that it was Socrates' failure not only to persuade his fellow Athenians that philosophy was beneficial to the city but also to convince his philosophical friends that political action was important that led Plato to turn away from the sphere of opinion and seek a more reliable eternal truth upon which to base both politics and philosophy. ‘‘Platonic truth, even when doxa is not mentioned, is always understood as the very opposite of opinion’’ (1990: 81). But Socrates’ famous claim in the Apology that the Delphic oracle had declared him to be the wisest human being, because he knew only that he did not know, meant not only that he had only opinions but also that he knew it.3 Socrates explicitly eschewed rhetorical speeches intended to persuade a multitude in order to engage in a dialectical conversation or dialogue with one other individual, because he saw that such rhetorical speeches were not true acts of persuasion. They represented attempts to force one’s own opinions on others by enacting them in law. ‘‘To Socrates, as to his fellow citizens, doxa was the formulation in speech of what dokei moi, that is, of what appears to me.’’ For Socrates and his fellow Athenians ‘‘opinion’’ thus had the character of Heidegger's original ‘‘truth,'' although Arendt insisted, contra
Heidegger, this opinion or truth is different for each and every individual. This ‘‘truth’’ could, moreover, only become manifest in public. ‘‘The word doxa means not only opinion but also splendor and fame. As such, it is related to the political realm, which is the public sphere in which everybody can appear and show who he himself is.’’ Although Socrates refused to speak in the public Assembly, unless required to do so by law, he did not retire into the private life of his own household (oikos). On the contrary, Socrates ‘‘moved in the marketplace, in the very midst of these doxai. ... What Plato later called dialegesthai, Socrates himself called... the art of midwifery: he wanted to help others give birth to what they themselves thought..., to find the truth in their doxa’ (Arendt 1990: 81).4
Socrates thus showed himself to be an individual who did not fit the previous understanding of a wise man (sophos) any more than he fit Plato’s later conception of a philosopher-king. Unlike previous wise men, Socrates did not neglect human affairs in order to study cosmic or eternal truths. Recognizing he did not possess knowledge, he went to the marketplace to test his own opinions in comparison with others. Socrates’ method rested on ‘‘a twofold conviction: every man has his own doxa, his own opening to the world,’’ so that he can ‘‘not know beforehand’’ how things appear to others. ‘‘Just as nobody can know beforehand the other’s doxa, so nobody can know by himself and without further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion.’’
Socrates wanted to bring out the truth that everyone potentially possesses. Using his own metaphor of midwifery, we might say: ‘‘Socrates wanted to make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths. The method of doing this is dialegesthai, ... but this dialectic brings forth truth not by destroying doxa or opinion, but on the contrary reveals doxa in its own truthfulness.’’ The role of the philosopher, as represented by Socrates, ‘‘is not to rule the city but to be its ‘gadfly,’ not to tell philosophical truths but to make citizens more truthful’’ (1990: 81).
Unfortunately, Socrates' fellow Athenians could not tell the difference between Socrates and his predecessors. Nor did they understand the way in which the kind of philosophy he practiced was politically useful. So they convicted him, and Plato concluded that persuasion was not a sufficient basis for politics or philosophy.
As a result, Plato and his successors lost two of Socrates' essential insights. One arose from the Delphic command to know thyself, which led the philosopher to examine both his own opinions and those of others. The second was that ‘‘it is better to be in disagreement with the whole world than, being one, to be in disagreement with myself.’’ This experience of‘‘being one’’ and yet able to talk to oneself, as if one were two, is the basis not only of our ability to contradict ourselves but also of our fear of doing so. Someone who is not of one mind and thus vacillates or even opposes herself is not reliable. This experience of talking to oneself, as if one were two, is also the basis of friendship; and, as Aristotle saw, friendship rather than justice is the basis of political community. Only ‘‘because I am already two-in-one, at least when I try to think, can I experience a friend, to use Aristotle’s definition, as an ‘other self.' '' A ‘‘friend understands how. . . the common world appears to the other.’’ And ‘‘this kind of understanding - seeing the world (as we rather tritely say today) from the other fellow’s point of view - is the political kind of insight par excellence’ (1990: 83-4).
Plato distorted Socrates’ insight into the essential plurality of human existence, which begins and is expressed in the dialogue we have with ourselves in attempting to understand who we are, by recasting the internal division we experience as a conflict between soul and body and insisting that the soul must rule. ‘‘To the philosopher, politics... became the field in which the elementary necessities of human life are taken care of’’ (Arendt 1990: 101-2). Practical political activity thus came to be seen as far inferior to the contemplative life, and in modern times both practice and theory were devoted to providing the goods human beings need to survive. The western philosophical tradition came to an end when Marx declared that labor was the source of all value and that technology would relieve human beings of the need to labor. Human life no longer had any distinctive purpose or meaning.
‘‘To find a new political philosophy from which could come a new science of politics,’’ Arendt thought, it would be necessary to regain the Socratic insight.
Solitude, or the thinking dialogue of the two-in-one, is an integral part of being and living together with others, and in this solitude the philosopher, too, cannot help but form opinions... His distinction from his fellow citizens is not that he possesses any special truth from which the multitude is excluded, but that he remains always ready to endure the pathos of wonder and thereby avoids the dogmatism of mere opinion holders. (1990: 103, 101)
World History
