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ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to articulate and analyse the complexity of the concept of work in Hannah Arendt’s philosophy. Work is usually interpreted as antithetical to political action. This claim merits specification: only the instrumental, utilitarian strand of homo faber poses real danger to authentic politics. By contrast, the artistic or cultural mode of homo faber is not only compatible with Arendt’s understanding of politics, but in fact indispensable for any form of political longevity. Enduring political existence is impossible without the constant support of artists, poets, historiographers and monument-builders who reify and memorialize the key meanings of political communities. This claim is substantiated by applying the phenomenological concept of sedimentation and drawing the political implications of this application. However, similarly to Edmund Husserl, Arendt identified a dual, problematic nature of sedimentation that underscores the importance of natality and thinking in artistic practice.
KEYWORDS:
Disclosure Statement
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Notes
1 Arendt, The Human Condition, 154.
2 Ibid., 168.
3 Markell.
4 Ibid., 18.
5 Arendt, The Human Condition, 7.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., 152.
8 Ibid., 7.
9 Arendt traces the emergence of this asymmetry in the political philosophy of Plato, describing it as “the traditional substitution of making for acting”. To ensure the safety of a philosopher (like Socrates), one needs to create a strictly hierarchical political system where ordinary citizens (who only have unfounded opinions) must obey those who know the truth. See Arendt, The Human Condition, 220–30.
10 Ibid., 154.
11 Ibid., 154–57.
12 Ibid., 229.
13 Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 179–80.
14 Ibid., 171. Emphasis added.
15 Ibid., 170–71.
16 Ibid., 172.
17 Arendt, The Human Condition, 167, 170–71.
18 Gasché 154; see also Flynn 224.
19 Arendt, The Human Condition, 168–69; Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 172.
20 Sjöholm 52.
21 Arendt, The Human Condition, 198; Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 173.
22 On Arendt’s understanding of tradition, see Arendt, “Tradition and the Modern Age,” 17–40.
23 Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Thinking, 85.
24 Arendt, The Human Condition, 191–92.
25 Arendt, “The Crisis in Culture,” 213.
26 Tsao 97–100.
27 Arendt, The Human Condition, 194.
28 Sjöholm 25.
29 McMullin 93.
30 Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, 76–77.
31 Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment, 76, 144.
32 Craig and MacDonald 203.
33 Ibid., 204.
34 Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, 43.
35 McMullin 91–93.
36 Sjöholm 220.
37 Husserl 368–69.
38 Blomberg 83–87.
39 The concept of sedimentation is not foreign to Arendt: see “Culture and Politics,” 165.
40 Cf. Husserl’s definition of history: “We can also say now that history is from the start nothing other than the vital movement of coexistence and the interweaving of original formations and sedimentations of meaning.” Husserl 371.
41 Geniusas 12.
42 Ibid.
43 Arendt, “Preface: The Gap Between Past and Future,” 5.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 6, 14.
46 Arendt, The Human Condition, 95.
47 Arendt, “Preface,” 14.
48 Arendt, “The Crisis in Culture,” 201; Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 160–62.
49 Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 162–64.
50 Arendt, The Promise of Politics, 201.
51 Arendt, Men in Dark Times, 11, 13.
52 Arendt, “The Crisis of Culture,” 197.
53 Arendt, The Human Condition, 52–53.
54 Arendt, “Culture and Politics,” 179.
55 Arendt, The Human Condition, 7, 9, 178.
56 Czobor-Lupp 456.
57 Sjöholm 59.
58 Margaret Canovan perceptively remarked that a lack of a clear distinction between the public and the specifically political often gives an impression to Arendt’s readers that she exaggerated the importance of politics. In Canovan’s view, Arendt may be “overburdening it [politics] by imputing to politics all the death-defeating properties that belong to culture as well.” Canovan 640.
59 Craig and MacDonald 203.
60 Donohoe 254, 257.
61 Ibid., 253.
62 Ibid., 255.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., 259.