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- Title
Construction of Identity in the Philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
- Authors
Vivier, Elmé
- Abstract
In her work, The Human Condition, Arendt deconstructs the notions of action, work and labour, as particular modes of being, in order to emphasize key differences between them. She further insists that it is only in and through public action and speech (or praxis), that human identity appears. The emphasis on action as the locus of authentic human being, and on key characteristics of action and work, suggests a significant difference between the appearance and the construction of identities. Efforts to construct identities, or to understand identity as constructed, seemingly undermines the essential characteristics that Arendt ascribes to action and human being. These primarily include human plurality and particularity, freedom as beginning, and freedom as non-sovereignty. In this chapter I consider the extent to which Arendt suggests a dependence of the possibility for action and thus freedom upon the faculty of work. This is problematic considering the differences between action and work that Arendt emphasizes, as well as in relation to her understanding of identity. However, further examination reveals a much more complex interdependence between faculties. I take this interdependence as the basis for understanding the faculty of judgment, which is also a theme in Arendt's work. Judgment, as action and as remembrance through work, mediates the tension between the faculties and makes the appearance of human identity, understood in the Arendtian sense, a meaningful possibility.
- Subjects
IDENTITY (Philosophical concept); ARENDT, Hannah, 1906-1975; HUMAN Condition, The (Book); NATIONAL character; HUMAN beings; PARTICULARITY (Aesthetics); LIBERTY; SPEECH
- Publication
At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 2012, Vol 79, p83
- ISSN
1570-7113
- Publication type
Article