Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Thinking and Acting
- 3 Theory and Method
- 4 Theorising Dark Times: The Origins of Totalitarianism
- 5 Theorising Political Action: The Human Condition
- 6 Theorising New Beginnings: On Revolution
- 7 Political Theory and Political Ethics
- 8 The Role of the Theorist
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The Role of the Theorist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Thinking and Acting
- 3 Theory and Method
- 4 Theorising Dark Times: The Origins of Totalitarianism
- 5 Theorising Political Action: The Human Condition
- 6 Theorising New Beginnings: On Revolution
- 7 Political Theory and Political Ethics
- 8 The Role of the Theorist
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In keeping with her method more generally, Arendt's conception of political ethics draws us back to the experiential field of politics itself and invites us to engage theoretically in a manner proximate with the contingent realm of appearances. The fact that this constitutes a form of intellectual resistance to both pre-political and supra-political criteria for establishing ethical precepts applicable to the public realm does not, however, entail the abandonment of any critical vocabulary. What is implied here is an immanent critical voice, demonstrating a greater modal proximity to the political itself, the kind of proximity that we have seen to be established in Arendt's methodological mediations to the theoretical voice. Commensurately, the critical judgments supplied by this theoretical approach are cognate with the field of judgment and with the standpoint of the reflective citizen rather than with that associated with what Arendt takes to be the traditionally accented voice of the philosopher. Answering as it does to our most recent experiences, this standpoint incorporates a general concern that is to be understood not in reference to an overarching principle or blueprint but rather by reference to a recognition of the political and of how, as a practice defined by its contingency, the political can decline and the capacities upon which it draws may atrophy. Accordingly, the general concern embodied in the critical perspective that Arendt's approach makes available focuses upon the possibilities for the enactment of the political and the conditions for its sustainability – the common world that provides us with grounds of common sense and terms within which we can interact coherently.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hannah Arendt and Political TheoryChallenging the Tradition, pp. 154 - 171Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011