Arendt between Past and Future

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel aims to explore the enduring influence of Hannah Arendt’s thought in political theory, demonstrating that her insights remain vital for the discipline as it seeks to analyse, navigate, and address today’s most pressing political and social issues. The individual papers examine how Arendt’s thought helps us to approach a new range of challenges: the impact of revolutions in digital technology and the rise of algorithmic systems, the universality of values raised in the context of tensions between China and the West, the role of political theory and theorists in the public sphere, and novel sources of isolation, loneliness, and thoughtlessness in late modern society. Together, these diverse yet interconnected papers explore how Arendt’s work not only aids in the diagnosis and interpretation of current challenges but also offers guidance in the resolution of the most critical issues facing our world today.

Kiran Banerjee’s paper examines the impact of algorithmic systems and big data on our understanding of politics and agency through the lens of Hannah Arendt's political thought, particularly her analysis in “The Human Condition.” It discusses the ever-increasing role that algorithms play in everyday life and governance, from consumer behaviour to criminal justice, and raises concerns about transparency and accountability in data-driven public policy. The paper argues that while the challenges of social algorithms and data science governance might seem novel, they are part of a broader historical trend that includes the emergence of a “stochastic worldview” and the “discovery of society” as a field of study and intervention. By integrating the insights of Arendt, Foucault, Polanyi, and Hacking, this paper explores how these developments challenge traditional political concepts, particularly the notions of public and private, action and work, and agency and responsibility. It aims to provide an Arendtian perspective on the theoretical implications of accepting algorithmic approaches in structuring and governing societies.

Lindsay Mahon Rathnam’s paper revisits Arendt’s influential, yet unwritten, theory of judgment in order to offer a new perspective on the contentious debate on the universality of values. Judgment, according to Arendt, emphasizes ‘thinking the particular’ in order to avoid the pitfalls of relativism and universalism. This paper draws attention to the underexplored influence of Herodotus’ Histories in Arendt’s account of judgment. Herodotus practices historie in the ancient sense - an inquiry into human nature facilitated by his survey of particular deeds and events. Reading his conception of judgment alongside Arendt’s suggests that some of Arendt’s fears about the stultifying effects of universal claims are misplaced, and judgment need not reject all universal claims. Instead, it can be motivated and informed by an aporetic and non-ideal vision of universal human capacities. To illustrate this, Mahon Rathnam draws upon her experience teaching political philosophy in China to show how universalizing claims can motivate unexpected political action.

Peter J. Verovšek’s paper discusses what Arendt’s views add to contemporary debates on the relationship between theory and practice. While analytic political philosophers have traditionally separated theory from action, others – such as so-called political realists, democratic under-laborers, and public philosophers – argue that theory should have a closer connection to real-world politics. Arendt, who preferred the term political “theorist” to “philosopher” did not explicitly define her stance on this relationship. However, her emphasis on comprehension as the essence of political theory and her role as a public intellectual suggest that she believed political theorists must engage with contemporary political questions – in contrast to the philosopher’s engagement with timeless questions in the abstract.

Benjamin A. Schupmann’s paper argues that the phenomenon of social acceleration exacerbates the causes of thoughtlessness. It first re-evaluates Arendt’s concepts of thought and thoughtlessness. Thinking, crucial for moral personality and identity, was being undermined by developments in late twentieth-century “mass” society, which intruded into the private sphere and increased pressures of social conformism, leading to individual moral “un-responsibility.” This paper then explores how social acceleration, as theorized by Rosa, aggravates the factors Arendt diagnosed. In particular, acceleration of social change and acceleration of the pace of life render individuals increasingly passive and objectified, subject to the “tyranny of the moment,” culminating in what Benjamin described as a general loss of experience. This dynamic radically increases individuals’ susceptibility to proto-totalitarian feelings of loneliness and isolation, setting the stage for radical evil and social engineering at scale.

Sub Unit

• Division 1: Political Thought and Philosophy

Individual Presentations

• Hannah Arendt and the Rise of Algorithmic Governance in the Digital Age - Kiran Banerjee, University of Toronto

• “Great and Wonderful Deeds”: Hannah Arendt and Herodotus on History and Judgment - Lindsay Mahon Rathnam, Duke Kunshan University

• Thoughtlessness and Social Acceleration - Benjamin A. Schupmann, Yale-NUS College

• Arendt as a Public Intellectual? Theory in a Politics of "Words and Deeds" - Peter J. Verovšek, University of Groningen

Chair

• Quinlan Bowman Duke Kunshan University

Discussant

• Catherine R. Power Glendon College, York University