In the face of seemingly new truth-related political phenomena, Hannah Arendt’s theory of truth in politics has recently seen a flare of renewed attention. Central to her theory is the distinction between rational and factual truths, and the claim that the latter, unlike the former, belongs to the political. The coherence of this claim, however, has been the object of much discussion and criticism. This article intervenes in the debate by foregrounding her conception of factual truth as “the outcome of (...) action” and advancing that this is best understood as an “extended” conception, one that includes in its compass a future-regarding concern for the facts yet-to-be. In so doing it contributes to clarify why it can be said that Arendt does not—like her critics have maintained—exclude truth from the realm of politics, but that in fact it brings to light truth’s most political dimension. (shrink)

Commentators have sometimes interpreted Arendt’s criticism of the use of measures in politics as leading to an anti-idealistic vision of politics that prioritizes sui generis action over normatively guided action. In this essay, I argue that Arendt was more ambivalent on the role of measures in politics than has often been supposed. I argue, first, that Arendt’s criticism of measures in The Human Condition extends only as far as instrumental kinds derived from extra-worldly sources, like a transcendent realm of forms (...) or an immanent realm of passions or cognitions. Second, I argue that Arendt prepares for an appropriately political conception of measures within The Human Condition, thus linking that text to her later writings on judgment where exempla are suggested as fulfilling this role. Finally, I summarize how exempla satisfy a conception of measures consistent with worldliness, plurality and natality. (shrink)

The “boomerang thesis” enjoys widespread currency in contemporary scholarship: that the means and ends of colonial domination would “spin back” to the metropole is an idea with intuitive grip. This article extrapolates the depth of meaning this metaphor contains, as well as what it conceals. It first considers the “boomerang” as it appears in Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism, a poetic work that captures the moral and experiential return-effects of imperial violence. Turning to Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism—the only (...) articulation of the thesis that uses the word “boomerang”—the article disaggregates the teleological, ideological, and institutional elements that spun back from European colonies in the imperial era. Finally, it traces the development of the thesis in Michel Foucault’s “Society Must Be Defended,” where it is transformed into a more general explanatory mechanism. Each theorist indicates how distance operates to transform dubious, even hateful ideas into acceptable practices. (shrink)

Arendt’s reading of Kant’s aesthetics as political theory has proven contentious, as exegesis regarding the Critique of the Power of Judgment and still more as description of the concerns and norms of political action. Although Arendt’s politicisation of aesthetics is more fraught than she at times admits (but less reckless than some of her critics maintain while also more anarchic than some of her defenders acknowledge), I argue her insight into the republican promise of the model of non–conformist sociability that (...) Kant discerns among aesthetic judges is worth securing. Arendt appeals to Kant’s sensus communis, pure aesthetic judgement, impure aesthetic judgement and works of art in order to make sense of a mode of political sociability that avoids both atomisation and uniformity. For Arendt, the various ways political history and philosophy have conceived political bodies have been less adroit at preserving the openness of the political than Kant’s aesthetic community. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is associated with a strong distinction between guilt and responsibility: Whereas she insists that guilt is strictly personal, she advances a vicarious notion of collective political responsibility without guilt. Yet Arendt also proposes a political concept of forgiveness—which yields the critical question: Does a political concept of forgiveness not presuppose a political concept of guilt? Arendtian forgiveness addresses what Arendt terms trespassing. Scrutinizing her notion of trespassing and how it is situated within her theory of political action, I (...) ponder whether Arendt, in effect, offers a political concept of guilt. I argue that while trespassing is clearly a political notion, it cannot be labelled guilt. Rather, trespassing refers to a purely causal responsibility without blame, and to a social-ontological condition of non-sovereignty and fallibility inherent in political interaction. The non-blameworthiness of trespassing implies that Arendt’s oft-cited concept of forgiveness resembles what is usually categorized as excuse. (shrink)

Since the 1990s, political theorists have widely mobilized Arendt’s theory of political action to theorize and assess the impact of digital media on the public sphere. These contributions, however, refer directly to her substantive-normative concepts without attending to how she develops them. This approach, I argue, has obscured the complex interplay between technology and political action in Arendt’s analysis of the public sphere. Drawing from Arendt’s phenomenological methodology (rather than her substantive-normative concepts), I propose that a more effective approach begins (...) with a phenomenological analysis of the “world” as already shaped by the technological environment. This approach centers around the phenomenological notion of “intentionality” that shows (i) the fundamentally intentional character of political action and (ii) how technology plays a key role in (de)stabilizing this intentional structure. The result of this article is a methodological blueprint, consistent with Arendt’s methodology, to re-examine the digital transformation of the public sphere. (shrink)