The Ends of Praxis in Hannah Arendt's "Theory of Action"

• In Event: Politics and Friendship in the Cosmos

Abstract

Hannah Arendt’s theory of action relies on her assertion that political action be viewed as an “end in itself.” George Kateb and others have rightly pointed out the moral and theoretical issues associated with this aspect of Arendt's theory. What are we to make of a politics in which action and speech are ends in themselves and cannot reference any outside moral or utilitarian precepts? Political action in this sense would seem to be in danger of becoming an empty charade, or worse, morally vacuous. Did Arendt really believe that political action could be a realm of ultimate meaning in and of itself? Or was she importing a set of presuppositions about the meaning of political action?

In attempting to address this question, some scholars have asserted that Arendt was engaging in a tacit or "crypto" theology. For example, Bernauer and others have argued that Arendt was finding ways to express certain theological concepts she had garnered from her study of Augustine and her work with Rudolf Bultmann in secular terms. In this paper, by contrast, I will argue that rather than any tacit set of strictly "theological" presuppositions, Arendt's theory of action rests on her attempt to recover a superadded layer of existential meaning associated with intersubjectivity in political action that is only available to those who actually engage in the praxis of politics as she conceives it.

In order to show that this is the case, I will scrutinize Arendt’s distinctive approach to reading the Western philosophical tradition. For Arendt, thinking about politics requires one to go "diving for pearls," that is, digging deep into the tradition to discover the originating experiences at the root of traditional or dogmatic concepts. In other words, one must dig deep into traditional concepts in order to discern the "phenomenal reality" or originating experience lying at the core of such concepts in order to recover their meaning in new contexts.

It is my contention that Arendt’s theory of action relies heavily on this idiosyncratic approach to the Western philosophical and theological tradition. Rather than disguising theoretical concepts in non-theological language as some have argued, Arendt aims to unearth the experience of concrete persons in intersubjective contexts, experiences which in her sources are often described using theological categories. Thus, for example, in her reading of Augustine, the good of an intersubjective politics does not fulfill a desire, rather it derives its meaningfulness from "a transcendent region . . . from a source that precedes its creation." Similarly, the eschatology of the encounter of the "thou" in Bultmann's existential approach to the New Testament attributes a transcendent aspect to concrete interpersonal interactions. In both cases, there is a superadded layer of meaning that results from the intersubjectivity of political action. Arendt’s concern is to preserve such existential meaning while shedding the dogmatic or theological manner in which such meanings are expressed.

The end result is that any "theological" aspects of the phenomena are not available within her theoretical approach. They are only available to the persons who engage in the praxis of politics. Thus her theory of action is not theological per se, but it does rely on an extra layer of meaning that is only accessible in concrete experience. The precies nature of such added layers of meaning is left an open question; it is up to the persons who engage in political action to discover. In this sense, then, Arendt’s theory political action can be said to be an end in itself only as described in theory. It is only in the event of encounter itself native to political action that the meaning of engaging as equal persons in politics can be grasped.

Author

• Thomas Wayne Holman, The Catholic University of America