Hannah Arendt's theory of freedom

216 Pages·2016·1.28 MB·English

by  Luke Neal

Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Freedom: A Reinterpretation

By Luke Neal
A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Political Science and International Studies
School of Government and Society
College of Social Sciences
University of Birmingham

September 2015
University of Birmingham Research Archive

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Abstract

Freedom is undoubtedly a central concept employed by Hannah Arendt in her political
thought, yet I believe that it remains open to further interpretation. This thesis attempts to
outline what Arendt means by the term and the implications of it for her thought more
broadly. Advancing a nuanced methodology which seeks to understand the relationship
between Arendt’s primary concepts, this thesis examines how a large body of terms come
together to form her unique and heavily politicised theory of freedom. These ideas are often
related to Arendt’s philosophy of speech, which draws heavily upon ancient Greek political
understanding. The thesis proceeds with reference to her critique of totalitarian language and
the problems that she associates with it, which is then compared specifically with the Greek
account of rhetoric. From here the thesis proceeds toward Arendt’s ideal of political discourse
which it is suggested also is heavily grounded in the German hermeneutic tradition. Combining
the Greek and German influences, I conclude that Arendt’s account of freedom should be
labelled freedom as rhetoric. Building upon this observation it is then claimed that Arendt is
best understood as advancing a form of hermeneutic republicanism.
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the University of Birmingham for giving me the opportunity to write this
thesis through their generous scholarship and teaching opportunities.
I would also like to thank Richard Shorten, Andrew Knops, and Steve Buckler for their superb
guidance over the past years.
None of this would have been written, of course, without the support of my great friends and
family. Thanks, again.
Table of Contents

0. Introduction 1
0.1. Understanding Arendt’s Philosophical Method 1
0.2. A Basic Method of Terminological Analysis 12
0.3. Thesis Summary 15

1. Chapter One: Politics, Freedom, and Speech 19
1.1. The Puzzle of Political Action 19
1.2. Speech in Antiquity 23
1.3. Speech and the tradition of Political Philosophy 29
1.4. Speech in Modernity 32
1.5. Socratic Speech 42
1.6. Politics Against Cliché 47

2. Chapter Two: Modernity and Friendship 49
2.1. Loneliness and the Totalitarian 50
2.2. The Path Toward Loneliness 57
2.3. Re-thinking Modern Friendship 64
2.4. Classical Friendship 70
2.5. Friendship and Political Association 76

3. Chapter Three: Judgment and Political Responsibility 78
3.1. The Moral Lessons of Totalitarianism 79
3.2. Judgment as Political Understanding 84
3.3. Hermeneutics and the Binding Power of Rhetoric 93
3.4. Responsibility for the World 101
3.5. Towards Connecting Judgment and Freedom 109

4. Chapter Four: Action and Principle 111
4.1. Defining Political Principle 112
4.2. Principles and Values 119
4.3. The Principle of Totalitarianism 122
4.4. Principles in the Great Revolutions 130
4.5. Toward Freedom 143

5. Chapter Five: Freedom as Rhetoric 145
5.1. Freedom as the Meaning of the Political 146
5.2. Movement as the Basis of Freedom 149
5.3. The Act of Founding as the Relatively Absolute 156
5.4. Freedom and Principle 163
5.5. Freedom as Rhetoric 168
5.6. Towards an Arendtian Theory of Hermeneutic Republicanism 179

6. Conclusion 186
6.1. Thesis Summary 186
6.2. Considering Freedom as Rhetoric 189
6.3. Considering Hermeneutic Republicanism 194
6.4. Thinking About the Past For the Present 198

7. Bibliography 202
Abbreviations

EJ: Eichmann in Jerusalem
EU: Essays in Understanding
HC: The Human Condition
JP: The Jew as Pariah
K: Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy
MDT: Men in Dark Times
OT: The Origins of Totalitarianism
OV: On Violence
PAP: Philosophy and Politics
PP: The Promise of Politics
RJ: Responsibility and Judgment
T: ‘Thinking’ in The Life of the Mind
TMC: Thinking and Moral Considerations
W: ‘Willing’ in The Life of the Mind
A Note

Arendt supplied highly gendered language, often referring to humanity as ‘man’ or ‘mankind’.
For the sake of staying true to Arendt’s language, I have not attempted to change this. I hope
that this will not be interpreted in a negative manner.
The Greek polis will continue to exist at the bottom of our political existence…for as long as
we use the word ‘politics’
Hannah Arendt
Men in Dark Times
Introduction

This thesis seeks to examine what I believe to be the most important term for the writings of
German political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975): freedom. Within the following chapters
I proceed with an analysis of the concepts that feed into her understanding of freedom, with
the intention of granting the term further clarity. Throughout the thesis I attempt to show how
her account of freedom is influenced by various observations regarding both the totalitarian
phenomenon and traditional philosophy as founded by Plato. One of the central claims which
influences proceedings is the vast influence that her theory of speech exerts over her thought,
which culminates in my final description of Arendtian freedom as rhetoric. Using this account
of freedom as rhetoric I then question how this impacts our understanding of Arendtian
politics, focussing in particular on her republicanism. In this introduction I introduce Arendt’s
philosophical method and then use this as a means of generating an appropriate method for
the task of this thesis, which I label gravitational. Following this, I provide a quick summary of
the arguments made throughout these pages.

0.1 Understanding Arendt's Philosophical Method

Close friend of Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, has provided two of the most revealing
descriptions of Arendt's writings. The first emerged during an exchange at a conference in
Toronto, 1972:
This space that Hannah Arendt creates in her work and which one can walk into with
the great sense of walking through an arch into a liberated area and a great part of it is
1