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Hannah Arendt and the Concept of Political Thinking Mohammad S

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Hannah Arendt and the Concept of Political Thinking Mohammad S Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Hannah Arendt and the Concept of Political Thinking Mohammad S. Alwahaib Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] The Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences Hannah Arendt and the Concept of Political Thinking By Mohammad Alwahaib A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2006 Copyright © 2006 Mohammad Alwahaib All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Mohammad Alwahaib defended on August 4, 2006. _________________________ Peter Dalton Professor Directing Dissertation __________________________ John Kelsay Outside Committee Member __________________________ Russell Dancy Committee Member Approved: ______________________________ J. Piers Rawling, Chair, Department of Philosophy The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii This dissertation is dedicated to my Father, Shehab Alwahaib. With each passing day I realize more how much he lives within me, and how great a shadow he casts over my life. He may not have believed that I understood all that he did for me, but I do now. I want to thank him for always being there for me when I needed him. Because of him, I have become a better person than I may have without him. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Peter Dalton for valuable comments and suggestions throughout the various stages of this research; I am most grateful to him for giving me the benefit of his attention and expert help. Special thanks to Shiyloh Duncan, a friend and colleague at FSU. I will always be grateful to her unlimited support, insights, and generosity in reading, commenting and ‘Englishing’ early drafts of this dissertation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………..vi INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..1 1. FROM PHILOSOPHY TO POLITICS……………………………………………..9 The Distinction between the Pariah and the Parvenu…………………………11 Zionism………………………………………………………………………..19 The Palestinian Question……………………………………………………...37 2. A CLOSER LOOK AT ‘POLITICAL THINKING’……………………………….44 Philosophy and Politics………………………………………………………..45 The Human Condition…………………………………………………………62 Eichmann’s Thoughtlessness…………………………………………………..91 3. ON THINKING……………………………………………………………………115 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….129 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………136 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….150 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………154 v ABSTRACT Many claim that Hannah Arendt’s political thought was developed through various stages, and that this development took place through various confrontations with topics such as ideology, totalitarianism and her concerns with the so-called “Jewish question”. Arendt’s political thought is usually characterized by an early emphasis on the priority of the political over that of the mind. In other words, her work is usually read as emphasizing the priority of the mode of living-with-others; action, over the solitary activity of thinking. This ‘early’ emphasis on the priority of politics goes hand in hand with her rejection of all transcendent standards or truths in the sphere of politics. Arendt’s later writings, which were devoted mainly to the life of the mind, are usually read as a reversal of thought: a priority of thinking over action. Arendt’s alleged reversal of thought took place through her witnessing the trial of the war criminal Adolph Eichmann whose crime, Arendt suggested, sprang from the fact of thoughtlessness. Arendt’s new emphasis on the priority of thinking is supposedly something for which her early works made no provision. Almost contradicting everything she believed in before, Arendt’s new ‘political thinking’ allows the introduction of truth and transcendental standards into the political realm. I believe that the above interpretation does not do justice to Arendt’s political thought. To introduce the distinction between ‘early’ and ‘late’ into her works obscures above all the continuity of her thought. I believe that there is a unifying thread that runs through Arendt’s main works whether ‘early’ or ‘late.’ I call this unifying thread ‘political thinking.’ Careful analysis of Arendt’s ‘early’ thoughts on politics shows a considerable emphasis on the importance of thinking in relation to politics or action. It is this specific kind of thinking, political thinking, that does justice to both, the demands of the mind on one hand, and the demands of experience on the other. I explore the development of ‘political thinking’ in Arendt’s major writings beginning from her doctoral dissertation on Rahel Varnhagen to her final thoughts on The Life of the Mind. vi INTRODUCTION Hannah Arendt once said in describing political western tradition, “Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx.”1What is common among these philosophers, she believes, is their approach to the political sphere. To all of them, with varying degrees of course and in different contexts, politics is the domain of vulnerability, unpredictability and contingency. In other words, ‘truth’ can never be found in ordinary political practices. Thus, Plato turned against the Polis and became confident that if there would be a remedy for politics then philosophers must become politicians or politicians become philosophers. He believed that the reform of politics must come from a vision of truth. One can find the same approach in Aristotle although with less confidence in ‘truth’. The moderns committed the same mistake as Plato because they also imagined some laws, to be sure, absolute laws according to which history progresses. Such laws are believed to be valid, beyond any doubt and discoverable by reason alone. From hence they held that the movement of history is necessary and predictable. The result of the modern’s doctrines with regard to the relation between thought and action is similar to the despotic one of Plato. It is true that the moderns emphasized the role of experience and so they seem to overcome the dualism between transcendent truth and historical contingency. However, Arendt believes, modern political theories as well as the ancient are one and the same; they both resulted in undermining what is truly human in the sphere of politics, freedom. They both tend to overlook the real value of politics by judging it from the vantage point of Reason. Arendt’s analysis of freedom in relation to what threatens it goes hand in hand with her analysis of some key notions such as plurality and action: the sphere of plurality is the sphere that allows everyone’s freedom to be established or revealed through action. She believed that every human being has an identity or a life story that is so unique that it can never be duplicated. The ontological foundation of such unique identity, she argues, is the fact of natality or of giving birth to a new person. This genuine existence of someone can be revealed through the practice of freedom, that is, in acting and speaking 1 among other unique and free individuals. Arendt celebrates the sphere of politics, called the vita activa, since it is the sphere where individuals reveal their unique selves through ‘action.’ Such celebration of action has some implications with regard to ‘truth’ and history. Truth, traditionally understood by political philosophers, does not deserve its historical exaltation since it is usually held by ‘professional thinkers’ and not the rest of the citizens. If something is to be praised then it must be the opinions of ordinary people, i.e., their unique and different ways of seeing and assessing their affairs. Thus, the commitment to Truth in the realm of absolute standards of the philosophers must be replaced with a commitment to our different opinions in the realm of human affairs. The implication of the exaltation of action with regard to history is that history is inherently unpredictable—something which is contrary to the modern belief that history somehow progresses according to some laws. These implications will be seen in more detail as the development of Arendt’s thought is analyzed. Most commentators believe the works of Arendt can be viewed as an attempt to describe and analyze some of the basic problems of politics. One of these problems is the disastrous effects of theory, or intellectual thinking, on the realm of politics, the realm where genuine freedom must be found. Although her attempt to rescue freedom from the implications of theory is obviously ‘theoretical’, it is important to see that her approach is not corrupted by any theoretical prejudice to a significant extent--something that forced her analysis into introducing some new terms or new meanings for traditional terms. Perhaps she wanted to distance herself from the tradition by introducing such terms. In the works of Arendt that will be discussed later, we will see clearly how she refused to measure the worth of the political realm by the standards of contemplation or the vita contemplativa. Arendt’s theoretical encounter with all forms of intellectualistic bias, including ideology and totalitarianism, with regard to politics is the subject matter of this dissertation. Upon a closer look at her works one can see clearly
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