#19660 - 4.A. Critical Theories Arendt - Jurisprudence

LECTURE(s)

• Rejected the DOM critical theory of Marx – gives an alternative

• Most famous for covering Eichmann’s trial in ISR = “the banality of evil”

  • Criticized for trivializing Nazi crimes

• Phenomenology – a method

• The political – another concept

• Arendt’s theory gives us a series of insights (quite discrete) – not one systematic theory

Methodology

• “Thinking without bannisters” – philosophers oft give us these “bannisters”

• Our experience of the world matters – we aren’t trying to seek some sort of divine or philosophical absolute = anti-metaphysical thinker

• We cannot create a series of logical conclusions through history or coercive logic – we have to take SITUATIONAL experiences quite seriously

• Political thought has to take a stand in the present – in the “crucible of events”

• Phenomenology is not a method with a specific definition – it involves an “excavation of forgotten traditions”, BUT we can take certain wisdom out of it

  • She is very good at distinguishing between various phenomena

Phenomenology

• Study of “that which appears” to the senses

  • E.g., Kant distinguishes the thing on the table and the thing itself – PHE only looks at the thing as it appears to us

    • Approach isn’t deductive (i.e., pure conceptual analysis) – noumena and phenomena

  • Not sheer collecting of data without data

  • Not universal moral truths or absolutes

• The point – studying experience and consciousness

  • Determining human nature is like “jumping over our own shadows”

    • We are OF the world

• We are conditioned by the facts of our earthly surroundings, BUT we also create our own conditions (we can intervene)

• Plato’s Cave – what we are experiencing in the world might be an illusion = the philosopher needs to seek the essence of things; Arendt DISAGREES – “infects” philosophy

Viva Contemplative v Viva Activa

• Critique of entire world of Western philosophy = neglects experience of freedom “in action”

• The idea that philosophy reaches its pinnacle via contemplation is dangerous – directs us in the wrong way = philosophers have sought freedom FROM political activity:

  • Prioritizes contemplation

  • Hobbesian fear of others

    • Leviathan is a representation of the essence

• Plato replaces action with philosophy; Marx turns philosophy into action

Arendt contra Marx

• She nonetheless criticizes Marx quite a bit

• Perception of history in Marxism about it having a definitive future (to communist utopia) – this determinism is troubled

  • Human affairs are more contingent than this – human existence is messy = POSSIBILITY of human actions, not of necessity

• Our creations/surroundings conditions us, BUT we aren’t determined by some superhuman features of the world – no SOC determinism, historical necessity, etc.

• Another critique – politics itself

  • Politics for Arendt is BASIC, not super-structural (or secondary) or ideological

• What Marx identifies as fundamental SOC relation based on labor is only one of three ways in which we interact – labor, work, and action

Loss of freedom in modernity

• Even in liberalism, we are reduced to an abstract entity, or in ECON liberalism, merely a consumer/statistic – same with Marxism, fascism

• This loss of freedom is derived from a basic mistake in philosophy

• Once we lose politics, we lose freedom – it’s become secondary (a function of SOC)

• “The rise of the social” – retreat into private life; this paradoxically leads to a great sense of conformity – related to the rise of bureaucracy

• Bureaucracy = “rule by nobody”

  • It isn’t CAP per se that alienates us (it can occur in socialist SOCs too), but alienation from political responsibility

The Antidote: Politics

• SC thinking is a series of attempts at escaping from politics – looking for security

  • Freedom in these SOCs means freedom from politics – for activities that occur beyond political realm

• You’ll never fight a GOV through ideas – you need power to counteract power

  • We can do this – we are able to build reciprocal ties (e.g., contracts, acts of political engagement, etc.)

II - Building Blocks of the Political

• Plurality

• Action

• Public realm – the space of action where we appear to one another as equals

Plurality

• Probably the most fundamental feature of the human condition

• We are unique as individuals; action corresponds to the human condition

  • Men, not Man, lives on earth – politics is key precisely because we aren’t the same

• Because the world appears to us in different ways, we need some way of interacting with each other – politics is the intermediary

  • No laws of history, no laws of nature

Action (Viva Activa)

• Not a straightforward category, three aspects of human life:

  • Labor (animal laborans)

    • We need to biologically reproduce life – necessity

  • Work (homo faber)

    • We do something more than surviving – work is not simple reproduction of life = it’s more than that

    • We make things, art, sculptures, etc. = that whole mode of artificial existence isn’t the same as labor; we are technical creatures – things as instruments to create things that outlive us

  • Action (zoon politikon)

    • Realm of action itself – we engage in PRAXIS (“practice of ideas”)

    • How we put ideas into practice – in that realm of action, we reveal who we truly are = when we are merely laboring, we are not revealing our true selves

• Politics is experience in and through action

• Freedom isn’t being left alone, it’s the reason why men live together in political organization = raison d’etre of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action

Freedom is Action

• We have a dialogue with ourselves when we think through a course of action

  • This isn’t sheer contemplation

  • Nor is it merely a choice between pre-existing alternatives (choice, not freedom)

• Freedom is the creation of those alternatives – capacity to create new things

  • It requires courage and other virtues – doesn’t come easily

• Action: expect the unexpected; capacity to act means that humans are very unpredictable

Public realm: space of action

• Action takes place in the realm of “appearances”

  • In the public sphere – the agora of GRE

• In that realm, we are liberated from necessity/labor/reproduction – we are equals in the public realm = that equality is what allows us to express our individuality

Public v Private

• This distinction is central to her analysis

• The private household is the realm of hierarchy – master/slave

• ECON derives from household realm (oikos), and cannot make sense of public realm

• Private life is consumed by necessities – we transcend that by engaging as equals

• The public sphere (agora) is where we express our individuality

  • This is destroyed by philosophers who want escape from that realm – e.g., Platonic Philosopher-King, or Christian salvation, etc.

  • In totalitarian regimes, the very idea of politics is defunct

• In this realm of politics, more than mere life is at stake (the world is); worldliness

III – Practical Themes

On Revolution

• REVs show how freedom appears in modern world

• Subjects now consider themselves rulers, BUT this wasn’t enough (i.e., merely overthrowing) – a construction of a common space was needed

  • This is a space where we can engage to each other as political equals

• “The right to have rights” without which “human rights” aren’t worth anything

  • HR is worthless without the practice of being a citizen

• 20^th century – plight of those who were denied citizenship

• HR as inalienable – idea that they’re INDEP of politics/GOV; BUT as soon as people lacked GOV (left them), no one was willing to guarantee them = that’s why you need PARTICIPATION

  • HR are too FRAGILE on their own – you need a power through which to assert them = i.e., a space where people can present themselves as equal to one another

Political equality

• We are not equal – we might become equal through MEMBERSHIP in political community

  • Equality is not a presupposition, or a factual claim – it’s a political aspiration = a condition of being a member of political community

• Some kind of State (power) must protect “right to have rights”

• Within the regime that do away with juridical person, individuals are reduced to “bare life”

• These INSTs which are built must last – LAW is critical

  • INSTs are created through promising, making ARR, law-making, etc.

  • INSTs are conserved through law and political action

  • Politics gives rise to new INSTs, but also TAMES unpredictability

Power v violence

• These terms aren’t synonymous

  • Resorting to violence signals loss of power

• Power is generated when people act among each other in the public realm – it’s fragile = new SOC movements can appear from nowhere, and can disappear just as quickly

• Power as bottom-up – among persons acting in this way of respecting one another as equals

  • That sort of power is associated with law itself, AGR, consent

• Violence is top-down – it can originate from one person

  • That person has little power – they might get things done, but not through consent, but sheer fear

  • Violence is instrumental – tries to achieve a goal = nothing intrinsically valuable about the violence itself = command and obedience

• Marxism has a reductionist view of power – power is not merely utilized instrumentally by those “in power” (ruling class)

  • Power doesn’t grow out of a “barrel of a gun”

• Also, isn’t reducible to ECON power – generated through interactions with one another

Rejection of command theory

• The upshot of this POV is that a traditional POV of the law is WRONG

  • Law is thought of as command – e.g., “Ten Commandments”

    • Notion of law appearing from above is deeply ingrained into our thinking –...