Abstract
Arendt’s theoretical influence is generally traced to Heidegger and experientially to the traumatic events that occurred in Europe during the Second World War. Here, we suggest that Arendt’s conception of politics may be usefully enriched via a proto-anthropic principle found in Augustine and adopted by Arendt throughout her writings. By appealing to this anthropic principle; that without a spectator there could be no world; a profound connection is made between the ‘cosmic jackpot’ of life in the universe and the uniquely human activity that takes place in the political realm. By making this connection we suggest that solutions present themselves to a central puzzle arising in Arendt’s thought: namely, what it is that people actually do in the political realm. The first solution directly addresses the issue of content: what people talk about in Arendt’s public space. The second addresses the importance of ‘maintaining’ a space of appearances. The third considers the effect of participating in and observing the public domain. Consequently, we conclude that, for Arendt, action is nothing less than the activity of ‘world-making.’
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Notes
On the influence of Saint Augustine, see Arendt (1999).
See Pitkin (1981).
See Scott, J. V. and Stark, J. C. (1999). editorial essay “New Beginnings”, pp. 115–141, in Love and Saint Augustine.
Arendt (1999, p. 55). The Augustinian source is not given on this occasion.
Arendt (1951). Arendt gives the source as De Civitate Dei, Book 12, Chapter 20. In fact, the correct source is the final line of Book 12, Chapter 21.
The term ‘modal’ is used here to reflect the fact that the Greeks had no word in their language to denote will or intention. As Dihle, A. (1982) notes in The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press): ‘Free will does not exist in its own right [in the Greek world] as it does according to St. Augustine’s anthropology,’ p. 45.
Villa (1996) has made a strong argument against Patricia Bowen Moore’s (1989) thesis that Arendt can be read more in terms of an agonistic encounter with Heidegger than as a theorist of natality. It seems to us that, insofar as this ontological encounter holds, it holds only after Arendt has dealt with some basic questions that occurred before the ‘end of philosophy.’ In short, the issues Villa deals with became important for Arendt, and in one sense of prime importance, but they are not the starting point. See Bowen Moore (1989).
Voegelin, E. Anamnesis, p. 116 and esp. Ch. 8, ‘The Consciousness of the Ground.’
Pelagius challenged the asymmetry of Augustine's later model. Augustine dealt with this so harshly that it became a heretical view: the Pelagian heresy. Nonetheless it rumbled on until contemporary times. For contemporary sources see Harden Weaver (1996).
A novel thesis in political theory of the period, but not one that would be surprising in contemporary cosmology where variations on the anthropic principle, and the relation between mind and universe, are well debated. See, for example, Bostrom (2002).
See Arendt (1968b), for a relevant discussion of ‘observer’ participation in the natural sciences.
The Human Condition p. 208, and relevant section pp. 199–208.
This idea may seem odd. But a brief reflection on the history of the associated culture shows it is fairly standard. Parmenides, for example, permitted no differentiation or change. The same model was followed by Spinoza and latterly by Althusser. It seems clear that Arendt stands in a tradition opposed to such models, models that depend on an inability to differentiate between individuals and take such differentiation as apparent and to be explained away in terms of attributes, appearance, or some similar formula.
On which see especially Augustine’s De Trinitate, still one of the most influential books on the composition of the human mind. See also Grumett’s (2000) discussion of internal and external mental triads in Augustine, pp. 162–3.
Arendt (1981, p. 143; p. 195). Arendt did not explicitly make a link between willing and totalitarianism in her early work. At the same time her major concern about totalitarian regimes was that they destroyed the human capacity for new beginnings. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973) she notes: ‘Terror...as the obedient servant of natural or historical movement has to eliminate from the process not only freedom in any specific sense, but the very source of freedom which is given with the fact of the birth of man and resides in his capacity to make a new beginning,’ p. 466.
Arendt (1981, p. 216). Also, see the chapter, ‘The Meaning of Revolution’ in On Revolution for a discussion of this issue.
Arendt (1981, p. 217). The second volume on ‘Willing’ was completed on Saturday, 29 November 1975. She died five days later.
Mary McCarthy asked just this question in an interview with Hannah Arendt. See Hill (1979).
Arendt (1999, p. 57). The Augustinian source is given as Confessions, X. 33, 50.
Taylor (1989) describes the various shifts towards radical reflexivity. It is defined quite clearly, at pp. 130–131, as a ‘presence to oneself’ that produces a being that can ‘speak of itself in the first person.’ Augustine’s Confessions fall most clearly into this category. It is, therefore, fair to describe Augustine as the founder of the modern self, if by that is understood the ability to refer extensively to oneself and others in first person singular.
A point that she makes clear in The Human Condition where, following Aristotle, she notes that drama or ‘play-acting actually is an imitation of acting,’ p. 187.
See Hinchman and Hinchman (1984).
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The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of Sophia for their insightful suggestions for improving this paper. Additional thanks must also go to Albert Weale, David Luban, Kenneth Peter, and Elizabeth Jenkins who provided comments on an early version of this paper.
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Clarke, B., Quill, L. Augustine, Arendt, and Anthropy. SOPHIA 48, 253–265 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0116-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0116-5