Jurisprudence (8) Arendt
Questions to think about
(a) What is Arendt’s conception of political freedom
(b) Is there a place for law in Arendt’s conception of political freedom
(c) According to Arendt, is law secondary to the political?
(d) Can freedom through politics become freedom through law?
(e) Does Arendt’s account of the political show that freedom is achieved through political action, rather than
law?
(f) What are the critiques of Arendt’s conception of the political?
(A) Methodological approach
‘Thinking without bannisters’
- She achieves a reflective approach without using history or logic as bannisters (‘thinking without
bannisters’;
• It is a way of thinking which employs neither universal laws of history nor deductive logic
- ‘…thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the
only guideposts by which to take its bearings.’ (similar to Marx - critique of idealism)
• Our living experience of the world is the key.
• Political thought has to take a stand in the present.
- The way we think about politics must be dependent on our own ‘crucible of events’ - things that
occur from experience from our own lives.
• But, we can use philosophy (ancient and forgotten ideas of thought) to help us, not as coercive power
over us, but help us make sense of what is going on.
- Excavation of existing but sometimes forgotten traditions of thought known as ‘pearl diving’
• regaining things that we have lost - philosophical ideas that we have forgotten over time which
may be made use of)
Phenomenology
- Phenomenology is an approach which rather than deducing conclusion from analytical enquiry or from
postulates about human nature or from any foundational process of rational reconstruction, it engages in
unearthing and recovering phenomena as they appear to us in the world and as they result from the words
and deeds of real men and women.
• ‘that which appears’ to the senses (note : they way the thing appears to us ; rejects Kantian approach
between thing in itself and and thing as it appears)
- It takes seriously and prioritises our actual human experience, in order to understand the world we
inhabit.
• It is not pure normative analysis imposed with our experience of the world (cf. noumena v
phenomena)
• It is not sheer empirical collecting of data without meaning; not universal moral truths or absolutes
— we are not pursuing philosophy in an idealist mode
- We uncover politics as it appears and as it occurs through human action.
- We need to study the properties and structure of political experience not human nature
• To determine human nature is like ‘jumping our own shadows’ as we are our own shadows. It is
impossible to do this.
- Our experience is conditioned but contingent on our action (by our earthly surroundings, our natural
world)
• For Marx, productive forces are essential.
• For Arendt, we are not only productive beings, but also creative beings, we create our own conditions of
existence (beyond biological necessity)
Page 1 of 32
,Critique of the Western Tradition of Philosophy
(1) Anti-Plato
(2) Critique of Vita Contemplativa having replaced Vita Activa
- Arendt disavowals the ‘great tradition’ of political philosophy and its attempt to divorce freedom from
politics and from action.
• Critique of ‘the entire tradition’ of Western philosophical thought as neglecting the experience of
‘freedom in action’ — western philosophy goes wrong right from the beginning
- The whole of western philosophical tradition can be understood as an attempt to define freedom as
freedom from politics.
• EXAMPLE : Plato’s ‘Parable of the Cave’ : Plato presents philosophers as seeing the truth beyond mere
human experience. This is an attempt to escape from political activity, human condition. Religion by
offering salvation after life is another form of escapism. These are attempts to escape from freedom.
- Philosophers and religions have sought freedom from political activity
- They have prioritised ideal forms/essences (Vita Contemplativa) over active live (Vita Activa)
• EXAMPLE : Hobbesian fear of others. We agree to surrender to authority is another form of escape
from freedom
• The tradition began when Plato replaced action of philosophy and ended when Marx transformed
philosophy into action.
- For Arendt, freedom consists in politics and in action, it is freedom to rather than freedom from.
(3) Critiques of other traditions (esp. Marxism)
Arendt contra Marx
- Contingency of human affairs
• The conditions of human existence are conditions of possibility, not of necessity
• The human condition of profound unpredictability.
- We are conditioned by our creations, not determined by some extra-human features (e.g. nature, society,
historical necessity)
• Human actions which takes place through our creative endeavours, is what conditions are- it is not non-
human feature.
- Contrast with Marx : Tripartite distinction: labour, work and action (in The Human Condition)
• Politics is not merely super-structural or ideological
- Politics is fundamental, it is action.
- Politics is fundamental to the human condition, and not superstructural (See Marx base
superstructure)
Arendt contra economic thinking
- the tradition of liberal political economy reduces human beings to statistics
- Economic analysis overrides our differences, it presumes a single and unique form of rationality
- ‘Economics’ services from the household realm ‘oikos’ and can make no sense of the public realm (where
we relate as equals)
Arendt contract liberalism
- There is no law above men in the sense of principles that can be ‘deduced’ autonomously to guide action
- Kant’s idea of universal moral law or UPR neglects the significance of political conditions
COMPARISON BETWEEN MARX AND ARENDT
- For Marx, the economic is primary and the political and secondary. For Arendt, it is the other way around :
politics is central
- Arendt is not a materialist, but Marx prime focus is the materialistic reproduction of society . Arendt
makes politics as signifiant, or more signifiant thats materialism
- Arendt : action is the most fundamental aspect of the human condition, as opposed to labour which. Is a
bare necessity of life (biological necessity). Work is more than that. It could be a work of art. It has less to
Page 2 of 32
, do with your bare survival, and more to do with expression or creativity. Action has no instrumental value,
it is what we do because we are human beings. It is also speech — any sort of activity that we engage in
which has some kind of collective aspect.
- Like Marx, Arendt thinks capitalism is problematic because it makes us retreat to the private sphere and
alienates us from politics.
Arendt Marx
Political is central Economic > political
Labour is merely a necessity to sustain life. Action Labour and work as prior to our reflective
as the fundamental aspect of the human condition consciousness
Law as necessary and reciprocal with politics Law as merely an instrument of oppression
Similarities :—
(a) critique of capitalism
- Marx : capitalism has led to oppression
- Arendt : alienates people from politics in pursuit of material accumulation
(b) Both are critical of the western tradition of philosophical thought
- Marx : rejects the idea that social historical change was effected by a great sophistication of ideas. Rather
Marx thinks that it is a product of our material conditions.
- Arendt : critiques the attempt to divorce freedom from politics through viva contemplativa, theological
thought
Which account is better?
(a) Marx
- Marx’s philosophical and political theory rightly acknowledges the influence of capitalism on the
relationship between law, politics and the state. We cannot begin to contemplate any f these relationships
if we do not situate it against the background of our societal reality — a capitalist society
- But this account of law is unduly narrow, and arguably not a true reflection of what law is in modern
society. His account of law is dated, suitable for 18th and 19th centre societies.
- Economic base v superstructure
(b) Arendt
- Agree that viva activa > viva contemplativa
- Especially in modernity, what use is theory if not brought into practice through political action (policy
making and law making)?
- However, problem in her idea of freedom being experienced through political action or thorough
beginning anew (revolution)
• Does that means that freedom can only be experienced by the few? While Marx’s idea of emancipation
may not be realistic in practice, at least it achieves freedom for all?
• How is Arendtian freedom to be reconciled with democracy? Especially representative democracy?
Page 3 of 32
, Loss of freedom in late modernity
Analysis of late modernity : modernity, western through Marxism or liberalism ends with a loss of freedom
(pessimist view). We lose sight of our individuality. This leads to totalitarianism; can be traced back further
through complexity in western philosophy in escaping freedom
ARENDT’S CONCEPTION OF MODERNITY
- In late modern age (Marxist or liberal) politics is but a function of society, built on aggregate interests
• For Arendt modernity is characterised by the loss of the world, by which she means the restriction or
elimination of the public sphere of action and speech in favour of the private world of introspection and
the private pursuit of economic interests.
(i) Modernity is the age of mass society, of the rise of the social (where men retreats back to the
private sphere) out of a previous distinction between the public and the private, and of the
victory of animal laborans over homo faber and the classical conception of man as zoon
politikon.
• Linked to the privacy of modern man and his individualism
- There is a division of private and public. The private sphere exists due to necessities of
life. On the contrary, the polis is the sphere of freedom. Man is ‘social’ before he is a
‘political animal’
- To be free means that having the power to leave the household and enter the political
realm, where all are equals. This freedom means to be free from the inequality present in
rulership in the private sphere and move to the political sphere where nether rule nor
being ruled existed.
- By entering the political, we master then necessities of sheer life, are freed from labour
and work — were are no longer bound to the biological life process.
• The rise of social coincides with the decline of private.
(ii) Modernity is the age of bureaucratic administration and anonymous labor, rather than politics
and action, of elite domination and the manipulation of public opinion.
• The public realm in the Greek sense was reserved was individuality; where men showed who
they really are.
- Excellence in the Greek sense has always been assigned to the public realm, where one
could excel and distinguish one from all others. The presence of others is necessary to
attain excellence
- Even though we have become excellent in the labouring we perform in public, our
capacity for action and speech has been lost since the rise of social realm that banished
these to the private realm.
- In the social realm, individuals don’t act, they behave according to what is expected of
them.
• The larger the population, crowded together, develop an irresistible inclination towards
despotism of a person or majority rule.
- The more people there are, the more likely they are to behave, and less likely to tolerate
non-behaviour. (‘statistical uniformity’)
• Paradoxically it leads to deep conformity : Society has excluded the possibility of action,
instead it expects its members a certain kind of behaviour, imposing various rules, which
tend to ‘normalise’ its members to make them behave. It is based on conformism, where
behaviour has replaced action. Conformation allows for only one interest and one opinion
(one-ness of man-kind).
• In the 20th century to bureaucracy – ‘rule by nobody’ - we are ruled by nobody; because in a
bureaucracy nobody takes responsibility.
- This is what is alienating, not capitalism per se
- It can occur in socialist as much as capitalist society
(iii) Modernity is the age when totalitarian forms of government, such as Nazism and Stalinism,
have emerged as a result of the institutionalisation of terror and violence.
• Society descends into horror.
Page 4 of 32
Questions to think about
(a) What is Arendt’s conception of political freedom
(b) Is there a place for law in Arendt’s conception of political freedom
(c) According to Arendt, is law secondary to the political?
(d) Can freedom through politics become freedom through law?
(e) Does Arendt’s account of the political show that freedom is achieved through political action, rather than
law?
(f) What are the critiques of Arendt’s conception of the political?
(A) Methodological approach
‘Thinking without bannisters’
- She achieves a reflective approach without using history or logic as bannisters (‘thinking without
bannisters’;
• It is a way of thinking which employs neither universal laws of history nor deductive logic
- ‘…thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the
only guideposts by which to take its bearings.’ (similar to Marx - critique of idealism)
• Our living experience of the world is the key.
• Political thought has to take a stand in the present.
- The way we think about politics must be dependent on our own ‘crucible of events’ - things that
occur from experience from our own lives.
• But, we can use philosophy (ancient and forgotten ideas of thought) to help us, not as coercive power
over us, but help us make sense of what is going on.
- Excavation of existing but sometimes forgotten traditions of thought known as ‘pearl diving’
• regaining things that we have lost - philosophical ideas that we have forgotten over time which
may be made use of)
Phenomenology
- Phenomenology is an approach which rather than deducing conclusion from analytical enquiry or from
postulates about human nature or from any foundational process of rational reconstruction, it engages in
unearthing and recovering phenomena as they appear to us in the world and as they result from the words
and deeds of real men and women.
• ‘that which appears’ to the senses (note : they way the thing appears to us ; rejects Kantian approach
between thing in itself and and thing as it appears)
- It takes seriously and prioritises our actual human experience, in order to understand the world we
inhabit.
• It is not pure normative analysis imposed with our experience of the world (cf. noumena v
phenomena)
• It is not sheer empirical collecting of data without meaning; not universal moral truths or absolutes
— we are not pursuing philosophy in an idealist mode
- We uncover politics as it appears and as it occurs through human action.
- We need to study the properties and structure of political experience not human nature
• To determine human nature is like ‘jumping our own shadows’ as we are our own shadows. It is
impossible to do this.
- Our experience is conditioned but contingent on our action (by our earthly surroundings, our natural
world)
• For Marx, productive forces are essential.
• For Arendt, we are not only productive beings, but also creative beings, we create our own conditions of
existence (beyond biological necessity)
Page 1 of 32
,Critique of the Western Tradition of Philosophy
(1) Anti-Plato
(2) Critique of Vita Contemplativa having replaced Vita Activa
- Arendt disavowals the ‘great tradition’ of political philosophy and its attempt to divorce freedom from
politics and from action.
• Critique of ‘the entire tradition’ of Western philosophical thought as neglecting the experience of
‘freedom in action’ — western philosophy goes wrong right from the beginning
- The whole of western philosophical tradition can be understood as an attempt to define freedom as
freedom from politics.
• EXAMPLE : Plato’s ‘Parable of the Cave’ : Plato presents philosophers as seeing the truth beyond mere
human experience. This is an attempt to escape from political activity, human condition. Religion by
offering salvation after life is another form of escapism. These are attempts to escape from freedom.
- Philosophers and religions have sought freedom from political activity
- They have prioritised ideal forms/essences (Vita Contemplativa) over active live (Vita Activa)
• EXAMPLE : Hobbesian fear of others. We agree to surrender to authority is another form of escape
from freedom
• The tradition began when Plato replaced action of philosophy and ended when Marx transformed
philosophy into action.
- For Arendt, freedom consists in politics and in action, it is freedom to rather than freedom from.
(3) Critiques of other traditions (esp. Marxism)
Arendt contra Marx
- Contingency of human affairs
• The conditions of human existence are conditions of possibility, not of necessity
• The human condition of profound unpredictability.
- We are conditioned by our creations, not determined by some extra-human features (e.g. nature, society,
historical necessity)
• Human actions which takes place through our creative endeavours, is what conditions are- it is not non-
human feature.
- Contrast with Marx : Tripartite distinction: labour, work and action (in The Human Condition)
• Politics is not merely super-structural or ideological
- Politics is fundamental, it is action.
- Politics is fundamental to the human condition, and not superstructural (See Marx base
superstructure)
Arendt contra economic thinking
- the tradition of liberal political economy reduces human beings to statistics
- Economic analysis overrides our differences, it presumes a single and unique form of rationality
- ‘Economics’ services from the household realm ‘oikos’ and can make no sense of the public realm (where
we relate as equals)
Arendt contract liberalism
- There is no law above men in the sense of principles that can be ‘deduced’ autonomously to guide action
- Kant’s idea of universal moral law or UPR neglects the significance of political conditions
COMPARISON BETWEEN MARX AND ARENDT
- For Marx, the economic is primary and the political and secondary. For Arendt, it is the other way around :
politics is central
- Arendt is not a materialist, but Marx prime focus is the materialistic reproduction of society . Arendt
makes politics as signifiant, or more signifiant thats materialism
- Arendt : action is the most fundamental aspect of the human condition, as opposed to labour which. Is a
bare necessity of life (biological necessity). Work is more than that. It could be a work of art. It has less to
Page 2 of 32
, do with your bare survival, and more to do with expression or creativity. Action has no instrumental value,
it is what we do because we are human beings. It is also speech — any sort of activity that we engage in
which has some kind of collective aspect.
- Like Marx, Arendt thinks capitalism is problematic because it makes us retreat to the private sphere and
alienates us from politics.
Arendt Marx
Political is central Economic > political
Labour is merely a necessity to sustain life. Action Labour and work as prior to our reflective
as the fundamental aspect of the human condition consciousness
Law as necessary and reciprocal with politics Law as merely an instrument of oppression
Similarities :—
(a) critique of capitalism
- Marx : capitalism has led to oppression
- Arendt : alienates people from politics in pursuit of material accumulation
(b) Both are critical of the western tradition of philosophical thought
- Marx : rejects the idea that social historical change was effected by a great sophistication of ideas. Rather
Marx thinks that it is a product of our material conditions.
- Arendt : critiques the attempt to divorce freedom from politics through viva contemplativa, theological
thought
Which account is better?
(a) Marx
- Marx’s philosophical and political theory rightly acknowledges the influence of capitalism on the
relationship between law, politics and the state. We cannot begin to contemplate any f these relationships
if we do not situate it against the background of our societal reality — a capitalist society
- But this account of law is unduly narrow, and arguably not a true reflection of what law is in modern
society. His account of law is dated, suitable for 18th and 19th centre societies.
- Economic base v superstructure
(b) Arendt
- Agree that viva activa > viva contemplativa
- Especially in modernity, what use is theory if not brought into practice through political action (policy
making and law making)?
- However, problem in her idea of freedom being experienced through political action or thorough
beginning anew (revolution)
• Does that means that freedom can only be experienced by the few? While Marx’s idea of emancipation
may not be realistic in practice, at least it achieves freedom for all?
• How is Arendtian freedom to be reconciled with democracy? Especially representative democracy?
Page 3 of 32
, Loss of freedom in late modernity
Analysis of late modernity : modernity, western through Marxism or liberalism ends with a loss of freedom
(pessimist view). We lose sight of our individuality. This leads to totalitarianism; can be traced back further
through complexity in western philosophy in escaping freedom
ARENDT’S CONCEPTION OF MODERNITY
- In late modern age (Marxist or liberal) politics is but a function of society, built on aggregate interests
• For Arendt modernity is characterised by the loss of the world, by which she means the restriction or
elimination of the public sphere of action and speech in favour of the private world of introspection and
the private pursuit of economic interests.
(i) Modernity is the age of mass society, of the rise of the social (where men retreats back to the
private sphere) out of a previous distinction between the public and the private, and of the
victory of animal laborans over homo faber and the classical conception of man as zoon
politikon.
• Linked to the privacy of modern man and his individualism
- There is a division of private and public. The private sphere exists due to necessities of
life. On the contrary, the polis is the sphere of freedom. Man is ‘social’ before he is a
‘political animal’
- To be free means that having the power to leave the household and enter the political
realm, where all are equals. This freedom means to be free from the inequality present in
rulership in the private sphere and move to the political sphere where nether rule nor
being ruled existed.
- By entering the political, we master then necessities of sheer life, are freed from labour
and work — were are no longer bound to the biological life process.
• The rise of social coincides with the decline of private.
(ii) Modernity is the age of bureaucratic administration and anonymous labor, rather than politics
and action, of elite domination and the manipulation of public opinion.
• The public realm in the Greek sense was reserved was individuality; where men showed who
they really are.
- Excellence in the Greek sense has always been assigned to the public realm, where one
could excel and distinguish one from all others. The presence of others is necessary to
attain excellence
- Even though we have become excellent in the labouring we perform in public, our
capacity for action and speech has been lost since the rise of social realm that banished
these to the private realm.
- In the social realm, individuals don’t act, they behave according to what is expected of
them.
• The larger the population, crowded together, develop an irresistible inclination towards
despotism of a person or majority rule.
- The more people there are, the more likely they are to behave, and less likely to tolerate
non-behaviour. (‘statistical uniformity’)
• Paradoxically it leads to deep conformity : Society has excluded the possibility of action,
instead it expects its members a certain kind of behaviour, imposing various rules, which
tend to ‘normalise’ its members to make them behave. It is based on conformism, where
behaviour has replaced action. Conformation allows for only one interest and one opinion
(one-ness of man-kind).
• In the 20th century to bureaucracy – ‘rule by nobody’ - we are ruled by nobody; because in a
bureaucracy nobody takes responsibility.
- This is what is alienating, not capitalism per se
- It can occur in socialist as much as capitalist society
(iii) Modernity is the age when totalitarian forms of government, such as Nazism and Stalinism,
have emerged as a result of the institutionalisation of terror and violence.
• Society descends into horror.
Page 4 of 32
