Arendt and Republican Thought
Is Arendt a republican? If one takes into account her emphasis on action, thehorizontal formation of power and the foundation of the civic republic, one can onlyanswer this question in the affirmative. But if one takes the republican discourse ofPettit (freedom as freedom from interference), Viroli...
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| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades.
2023
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| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/pescadoradeperlas/article/view/40411 |
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| Sumario: | Is Arendt a republican? If one takes into account her emphasis on action, thehorizontal formation of power and the foundation of the civic republic, one can onlyanswer this question in the affirmative. But if one takes the republican discourse ofPettit (freedom as freedom from interference), Viroli and Skinner (civic virtue) orRichter (good government) (Pettit, 1997; Viroli, 2002; Skinner, 1998; Richter, 2004)as a yardstick, doubts arise.The results of Arendt's analyses remain fragmentary and have elicited criticalcomments referring to the broad incompatibility of Arendt's pure definition ofpower, action, and politics/society with liberal society. What is overlooked in thesereadings is precisely the great potential for critique that goes hand in hand with thissupposed detachment from reality. I would like to illustrate this with two examples:firstly, Arendt's definition of power, which focuses not on the parliamentary andparty system of representation, but on participatory citizenship, and secondly,Arendt's reflections on councils -councils- as an original form of organizing action.In this article, we will examine the meaning of phenomena containing also thepotential of their possibilities: the between of intersubjectivity, the role of theperson, impartial thinking and cosmopolitan judgment, the institutionalization ofplurality in the form of federalism and, finally, the method of poetic thinking and therole of emotions.In doing so, we will encounter the significance of Arendt's particular way of thinking,which is expressed in the difference in the title of this essay: between a republicanthought that revolves around the conceptual characteristics of the republic in termsof political science (republican thought) and Arendt's thought, which is itselfrepublican in its activity and shapes content and form together (republican thought). |
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