A B S T R A C T
Plurality
as Fact and Value in Arendt's Political Philosophy
Kristian Klockars
Ph. D., Docent, University lecturer, Department of Social
and Moral Philosophy
University of Helsinki
Website
Hannah Arendt is famous for her statement that plurality is
the condition of political life. She lets this
“ontological” condition orient her conception
of both action and politics. In addition she emphasises the
importance of strengthening the realm of the political.
Viewed as a diagnostic, rather than a straightforwardly
normative, thesis her claim constitutes an elaboration on
the importance of a counterforce to certain worrying
tendencies of the age: a depoliticising individualisation
of human being as passive consumer, nationalist and
communitarian politics of the common good and a politics
focused on the social administration of mass society. It
thus concerns both the individual and common life in the
polis.
To strengthen the political, according to Arendt, means to
give and leave room for plurality to flourish. Through this
plurality also becomes a positive value. It is, however,
not easy to pin down what Arendt means by plurality as a
value. The difficulties are partly due to her uncommon
redefinition of the political. The political, in
Arendt’s sense, does neither primarily concern
governance nor political resistance, but a certain life in
common with others. A public space where people meet, their
opinions clash, they redefine themselves and work with
their own identity.
My contribution primarily deals with the question how we
are to understand plurality as a value in Arendt, and with
an assessment of this conception in relation to the
contemporary debates on deliberation, commonality and
conflict.
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