Human Plurality Research Articles

Reciprocity in the making of politics: An appreciation of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt upholds a deliberate critique of the man-made artificial world against the natural conditions in which life is given. She conceived this artificial space as something that men share with each other and communicate in. All the designated activities pertaining to her notion of Vita Activa, namely labor, work, and action correspond to such a common space. Among all the other constituents of the common world and its affairs, it is perhaps the construct of human plurality that Arendt held with utmost importance. For Arendt, such a condition of intersubjective affiliation is fundamental to the founding of any enfranchised body politic and can be perceived only via the medium of speech and action. Nevertheless, her notion of political action is largely debated and has remained equally controversial. This paper, therefore, would attempt to examine the tenets of this notion of plurality in constituting and simultaneously shaping the essential conditions of human existence, namely action, freedom, and a political way of life. Furthermore, by means of literary methodologies. Content analysis, and Textual analysis, this study intends to selectively analyze the significance of intersubjective recognition and reciprocity as the primary constituents of the phenomenological interpretation of action.

Hannah Arendt‘s reflections on power, violence and terror

In this paper, I address the question of Arendt’s distinction between power and violence. While violence according to Arendt is ruled by means-end reasoning, power corresponds to the human ability to act in concert. Thus power is the essence of all government, deriving its legitimacy from the people acting as a political community, while violence can never lead to the legitimate exercise of authority. Power and violence usually appear together, and violence may sometimes be justified; however, violence should never be equated with power in Arendt’s sense. Arendt also considers the relation between violence and terror. While terror involves violence, it is not identical with violence. She illustrates the difference by revealing the characteristic of terror in totalitarian regimes: the capacity to systematically destroy legitimate power and human plurality by destroying the space of action, the common world that is created between people.

The Particular and the Universal. Reflections on Knowledge Production, Human Diversity and Human Rights in Universal Design.

This article discusses universal design as a concept and strategy in light of human diversity. Inspired by the German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt, plurality is understood as a condition of humanity. From this recognition of human diversity, the term 'universal' is analysed, focusing on the ambivalences inherent in the concept. I argue that universal design, as a human rights concept, must respond to human plurality and avoid the ableist risk of excluding persons and groups of people, when implementing universal design strategies. Interdisciplinary knowledge, education and skills are important for the practice of universal design. According to Article 4 of the Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD), new research is needed to apply universal design strategies in different contexts. I then focus on disabling barriers in education and research. I conclude by arguing for developing a culture of access and embedding universal design strategies in disability research recognising the socio-cultural aspects and human plurality.

Cidadania e comunidade no contexto democrático ocidental: análise filosófico-educacional

This paper endeavors to carry out a philosophical analysis of the current state of civic education in Western democracies, in order to deal with the problematic dualism between extreme individualism and endogamic communitarianism, which alters the relational modalities and specific lifestyles that characterize human plurality. As such, the intention of this article is to understand how the formation of citizens supported by the practice of philosophy can cultivate a dialogical, open, and pluralistic community capable of facing this duality. For this purpose, we carried out a systematic and critical analysis of books and articles that, in dealing with the relationship between the individual and the community, aim to overcome the above-mentioned problematic dualism. Among the results of this study, we found that Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp’s Philosophy for Children (P4C) program contributes significantly to the empowerment of citizens, and supports the development of their ability to engage in dialogue in search of creative and ethical solutions in the diverse circumstances of daily life. Moreover, P4C contributes to the achievement of communities characterised by solidarity, plurality, openness, and self-correction, and which are oriented toward the rigorous search for the common good. Therefore, we conclude that community-based philosophical practices such as P4C can contribute to civic education and the formation of responsible citizens, offering a possible paradigm to develop the humanistic axis of the individual and promote openness to diversity.

Valuing Diversity Without Illusions: The Anti-Utopian Agonism of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies

ABSTRACT This article offers a novel interpretation of Karl Popper’s influential yet controversial book, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945). Popper, it argues, sheds light on a pivotal social and political question: How can we value genuine human plurality without succumbing to the illusion that enmity can be removed from the socio-political realm? What we find in Popper, I argue, is an “anti-utopian agonism,” that is, his conception of an open society harbors significant agonistic elements—a commitment to human plurality, an endorsement of (some) social and political struggles, and an acute awareness of the tragic dimensions of political life. Simultaneously, Popper’s distinctive anti-utopianism makes an important contribution to agonistic theory on two fronts. First, his concept of “the strain of civilization” reveals a deeper notion of tragedy, which gives him the edge over the rather shallow notion of tragedy we find in the agonistic tradition. Secondly, he develops a tripartite notion of enmity, which is theoretically interesting and practically relevant. The aim of this article is not only to contribute to the scholarship on Popper and agonism but, first and foremost, to demonstrate how The Open Society still matters as an inspiring work that illuminates the practically relevant question of how to value diversity without illusions.

Translation, compromise, forgiveness. Exploring the role of original goodness in an ethics of capability

While Ricoeur’s argumentation is philosophical, the symbols of religion nevertheless form an integral part of what his work investigated, and represent a meeting point between conviction and critique. Recent work has considered how the symbol of an originally good creation can shed light on Ricoeur’s philosophy. This paper builds from that proposal by considering the significance of the original goodness of creation for Ricoeur’s ethics of capability: in translation; through disagreements and compromise across economies of worth; and in the exchanges of memory transcended by forgiveness. These models operate within an ethics of recognition, where the original goodness of creation can be detected in human plurality in itself, as a presupposed horizon to enable constructive disagreement, and in an orientation to the good as a possibility of human freedom.

Makna Hizb dalam Al-Qur’an: Mengungkap Pesan Moral Al-Qur’an tentang Politik Identitas

The Meaning of Hizb in the Qur'an: Revealing the Moral Message of the Qur'an about Identity Politics This article discusses the moral message of the Qur'anic verses about hizb in relation to identity politics. This study is motivated by the use of the term hizb which is not in line with the moral message of the Koran and tends to be misused for the benefit of power politics. To reveal the moral message of the Koran used qualitative research by making the verses of the Koran about hizb as the object of study. Al-Qur'an verses about hizb are described thematically with the double movement theory approach, Fazlur Rahman. The results of this study indicate that the verses about hizb imply a moral message that is directly related to identity politics, especially the relationship between the existence of human plurality and divine principles. This relationship is formed by the existence of religiosity which supports the maintenance of ethical values. In addition, progressive ideas born from a nation's democracy always rest on ethical and rational truths. Ethical truth directs people consciously to maintain their identity without ignoring rational truth. Meanwhile, rational truth is placed properly in maintaining national unity in the discourse of democracy

Boon or bane? Open society and polarisation

Is polarisation a fundamental threat to the open society? Are the divisions that run through societies and separate them into two (or more) more or less hostile groups problems to be solved? Or are they the corollaries of a vibrant democratic system that might legitimately be called an ‘open society’? These are the questions I seek to explore in this contribution to the special issue. My argument unfolds through a reinterpretation of Karl Popper’s conception of open society as a democratic idea, characterised by an appreciation of genuine human plurality and diversity that make ‘critical encounters with the other side’ possible (and desirable); this conception of open society also recognises the progressive potential of social and political conflicts. For that reason, political polarisation cannot be regarded as a lethal threat to open societies. By contrast, ‘belief polarisation’, with its Manichean orientation and anti-political tendencies, is a much more serious threat. It follows that advocates of open society should avoid the temptation to solve the ‘problem’ of political polarisation – they should accept it as the price to be paid for the ‘imperfect ideal’ of open society. However, they should take steps to reduce belief polarisation through the active creation of spaces of critical encounters with the other side. The overarching aim of the article, then, is to make a contribution to both the literature on open society and polarisation. To that end, I will bring the concept of open society and the phenomenon of polarisation into a relationship of reciprocal elucidation: through the engagement with open society, I will shine some light on polarisation, and through the analysis of polarisation, I will put flesh on the concept of open society.

Arendtian Beginning Under the Threat of Violence

Action and violence are two of the most central topics in Arendt’s works. The opposition between action and violence can also be interpreted as the opposition between the potentiality of human capacities and their fundamental destruction in human life. For Arendt, action and speech are the actualization of those capacities in their ever-new forms. However, those capacities can only be actualized in human plurality: a plurality of equal and distinct individuals. Therefore, in its different appearances and in its different tools, the threat of violence for the individual and for the political realm consists in its intrinsic aim to destruct human potentialities and human plurality. In our economical-global world, world violence increases significantly, since the emphasis is no longer on political categories such as equality or political action, but rather on everything that can be turned into materials and accelerate economic growth. Human beings are not exceptions; they are constantly under the threat of turning into “human materials” as Arendt rightly claims. Hence, in this paper I will first examine the relation between action, beginning and potentiality and second, indicate how plurality and power interact; in the third part I will outline how violence transforms human beings into human material, and in the final part I will indicate some problems of inequality and the economic agenda which produces millions of displaced people.

The Library is Open

The Library is Open Ruben Quesada (bio) Were they happy in any real way, whatever real is, those first pioneers? –Carl Phillips, And Across Our Faces The desire to represent human plurality is at the heart of the American experience. Poetry can enlarge our view of the world and our understanding of each other. It is an ethical imperative to be inclusive and create a culture of belonging. LGBTQIA+ Latinx poets are still far underrepresented. Poetry has been a catalyst for representing marginalized people. Poetry can build a space for marginalized experiences. We live in a world of heightened empiricism, and our ability to share experiences fortifies people who tune in. Editors, like writers, build an experience for the reader through the editing and arrangement of creative work. Literary publications have to potential to establish a decorum for language and literature. The ability to publish and read has currency as we know about our nation, one of the only industrialized nations whose history includes restricting the ability of non-white people to read, among other atrocities. Who gets to create the narrative, the mythology about the people and the world around us? To be included in these expressions, to belong is permission-giving. The intersection of history, language, and the human experience is the heart of the poetic experience. Written by the largest ethnic and racial community in the United States since the immigrant population growth from Europe during the first half of the Twentieth Century, the poems in this folio leaven our imagination and serve as a record of a life lived. A people's history and language are integral to a poem's imagination and composition. These poets simultaneously offer an escape from self-consciousness through emotion and storytelling to guide readers. These poets are vastly documenting the (Latin) American experience. This unique folio reveals the confession of a new age. [End Page 61] Ruben Quesada Ruben Quesada, Ph.D. is editor of Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (University of New Mexico Press, 2022) and author of Revelations (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), Next Extinct Mammal (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011), and translator of Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda (Aureole Press, 2008). Dr. Quesada has served as an editor for AGNI, Pleiades, and The Kenyon Review. His writing appears in Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and Harvard Review. He is an Associate Teaching Fellow at The Attic Institute and teaches for the UCLA Writers' Program. He lives in Chicago. Copyright © 2022 Pleiades and Pleiades Press

몸 인식의 확장에 따른 패션화된 몸에 나타난 미적 특성 연구

The purpose of this study is to examine of in contemporary fashion through the characteristics of post-structuralism and pragmatic body aesthetics. The research method examines philosophical and aesthetic perceptions of the body, focusing on post-structuralist philosophers Maurice Merleau Ponty, Michelle Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard and the pragmatic philosopher Richard Schustermann. This study analyzes the data from domestic and foreign monographs and previous studies. After based on an aesthetic characteristic derived from an optimized art work related to body aesthetics, the aesthetic characteristics of the body that are popular in modern fashion were analyzed. The research results are as follows: First, body aesthetics derived from body discourse are divided into “experienced body,” “controlled body,” “derived body,” and “practiced body.” Second, the aesthetic characteristics derived from related to the aesthetics of the body were the deconstruction of the body and the otherness of the body. Third, contemporary fashion were “abstract of geometric space,” “resistance reality,” and “fetishistic playfulness.” Additionally, the otherness of the body appeared as “human pluralism.” Finally, the phenomenon of the “soma,” in which the body and mind are integrated as a new mechanism of the fashioned body in contemporary fashion, as discussed above, will expand the aesthetic extension of fashion with a positive perception of the alienated body in the post-human era.

Arendt and Beauvoir on the Failures of Political Judgment in Praxis

In this article, I bring together Hannah Arendt’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s respective theories of political judgment to evaluate the problems that arise from their accounts of judgment in praxis. To do so, I compare Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil on Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Israel and Beauvoir’s “An Eye for an Eye” on Robert Brasillach’s trial in France. In approaching the dilemmas of judgment in theory, both share a commitment to preserving freedom by virtue of our human plurality. In practice, however, both respectively demand the death penalty for Eichmann and Brasillach. I identify three distinct failures of political judgment in praxis: from the accused, the courts, and Arendt and Beauvoir, respectively. I contend that Arendt and Beauvoir fail to appropriately judge Eichmann and Brasillach by arguing for their execution, because it constitutes a form of political violence that undermines their theoretical accounts of judgment.

Obligations in the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in the history of the Earth where human action has acquired the power to alter the Earth System as a whole. While normative conclusions cannot be logically derived from this descriptive fact, this paper argues that law and philosophy ought to develop responses that are ordered around human beings. Rather than arguing for legal rights or extending rights to nature, this paper focuses on obligations. Drawing on Hans Jonas, it argues that obligations are a more appropriate tool for cultivating human plurality, restraining human action and protecting future generations.

O direito à educação para as pessoas com deficiência: nuances e entraves

O artigo explora as questões relativas ao direito à educação escolar para a pessoa com deficiência. Tem por objetivo identificar os óbices atinentes à materialização desse direito fundamental e analisar os instrumentos normativos que a sociedade pode utilizar para pleitear a concretização dessa garantia. Sendo a educação um direito previsto na Constituição Federal de 1988 e, considerando um cenário democrático e de convivência com a pluralidade humana, é imprescindível a plena efetivação da educação inclusiva e do atendimento educacional especializado para as pessoas com deficiência. A pesquisa desenvolveu-se segundo o método hipotético-dedutivo e a metodologia utilizada é a bibliográfica. Constata-se que há omissão estatal ou proteção insuficiente para implementar políticas públicas que consubstanciem essa garantia para os indivíduos com deficiência, o que fere a dignidade da pessoa humana e gera a ausência de estrutura adequada nas escolas.

Evil as an expression of and a threat to human plurality: Hannah Arendt’s agonistic realism

ABSTRACT This article challenges ‘agonistic’ readings of Arendt by demonstrating that Arendt’s work can be interpreted as ‘agonistic realism’. It argues that many agonistic readings of Arendt – I will discuss the readings of Bonnie Honig and Chantal Mouffe in particular – miss the central orientation of Arendt’s thought. By ignoring works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem, contemporary agonists overlook that her preoccupation with evil forms the basis of Arendt’s agonistic thought. The article suggests that a (re)turn to Arendt’s writings on evil, and a demonstration of their intimate relationship with works such as The Human Condition, reveals the ‘realist’ dimensions of Arendt’s thought: It reveals the picture of a thinker who is deeply concerned with the ever-present possibility of evil and who insists that perpetrators of evil must be treated as ‘enemies’. Furthermore, such a return to Arendt’s works on evil brings to the fore Arendt’s tragic insight that evil is both an expression of and a threat to human plurality and free political action. Arendt, in other words, accepts that while evil – as an expression of our humanity – can never be eradicated, it must – as a threat to our common humanity – be confronted.

The Modern Form of Cultural Cosmopolitanism

The article deals with interaction of transculturalism as the ideology of uncertainty with a cultural version of cosmopolitanism. In the cosmopolitan in its ontic plane, today’s thinking is not just universal and global. The emphasis is predominantly on the unidentified, in particular, the deprived of national attributes or opposed to national ones. Thus cosmopolitanism represents itself as an alternative to identification, that is, as uncertainty, incertitude in the conditions of a cultural homogenization of the world. This emphasis is connected to the idea of the possibility of an individual’s existence at once in several cultures or coexistence in a cultural mix, expressed in the concept of transculturality. The application of principles of cosmopolitanism in the realm of culture initially causes a certain contradiction through which radical cosmopolitans reject the very idea of culture. After all, this idea asserts human pluralism: culture as the attribute of the human by definition is something plural – a variety of ways to be human; so it can`t be abstractly-human. While the principle of cosmopolitanism consists of the oneness of humanity, and therefore indistinguishability within it. The overcoming of contradictions is sought in the justification of the purely private relations of a single person-nomad with world culture, his or her devotion to it. Such devotion in the vision of transcultures is achieved by an individual’s refusal from one’s own (local, national, etc.) culture and by endless journeys through cultures, that is, a cosmopolitan identification of both individual and culture. In an escape from the “captivity” of a specific culture, that is, in confirming the principles of uncertainty, transculturalists perceive almost the only path to cultural freedom. The article describes how transcultural ideology is formed and unfolded in the framework of modernized cosmopolitan trends. The author shows that transculture now is not an accomplished feat, it remains a kind of utopian project, a projective construct of cosmopolitan-oriented culturological thought.

Collective intentionality and the further challenge of collective free improvisation

The kind of collective improvisation attained by free jazz at the beginning of the sixties appears interesting from the perspective of contemporary debates on collective intentionality for several reasons. The most notable of these, is that it holds a mirror up to what analytical philosophers of action identify as “the complexly interwoven sets of collective intentions” that make a group more than the sum of its parts. But at the same time, free jazz poses a challenge to these philosophical theories of collective intentionality, because what happens is not planned in advance but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. The second and no less decisive reason is that jazz musicians act together in a very distinctive way, which casts into clear relief the interplay between togetherness and agonism, individual freedom and group commitment, which is contained in every human interaction. In other words, in free jazz we find what Hannah Arendt calls the “paradoxical” or “twofold” character of “human plurality.” Starting with the analysis of two paradigmatic case studies—Charles Mingus’s Folk Forms No. 1 and Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation—my main concern in this paper is to provide a phenomenological account of the individual-yet-plural intentionality that emerges and runs through the improvisatory process in the free jazz case. After having made the negative point that this phenomenon represents a challenge to the analytical theories of collective intentionality, I shall argue that it can be accounted for from a phenomenological perspective. My basic thesis is that the overall cohesiveness of the improvisatory process must be regarded as a meaningful realization of an overall feeling, shared and shaped together by musicians over time—and not as the execution of an advanced plan.

Repere de identitate constituțională în România pre- și post-comunistă

The Romanian Constitution, in art. 1 parag. 3, states that fundamental constitutional values such as human dignity, citizen rights and liberties, the free development of human personality, justice and political pluralism are to be understood through the spirit of the Romanian democratic traditions. Thus, working with traditions, we have to seek constitutional identity signs in the past, in order to see, in a wider analytical and institutional background, what defines the political identity of the Romanian people as a whole and as individuals (citizenship can be discussed in paradox terms). Such an academic endeavor can successfully turn into a book subject, considering its complexity and its inter, intra and pluri scientific field connections. In the limits of a research article, we will briefly explore the constitutional history of pre- and modern Romania (which is mainly a history of constitutional transplant). One of the aimed purposes of the paper is to discover the Romanian individual that constitutes the soul or matrix of the national state or to see if a Constitution really constitute constitutional identity.

Cosmos, Worlds and Republics

Viruses and pandemics are part of an overarching ecological theme that encompasses not only climate and plants, but all forms and conditions of life. This requires a far-reaching change in perspective. Not only does biodiversity, following Alexander von Humboldt, form a common “cosmos” across the globe, but we humans are also part of it. This natural sphere corresponds to Arendt’s concept of the “world” on the social and political sphere. Cosmos and world take the place of the old irreconcilable separation of nature/barbarism and culture/civilization. Consequently, the threat to cosmos and world does not come from nature but from man-made devastation. Biodiversity and human plurality can only thrive with the principles of environmental/political sustainability.

I Breathe, You Breathe, We Breathe: How a daily habitual movement appears as an action and grows into a gesture through listening

In this article I wonder whether the non-breath in-between inhalation and exhalation and inherent to breathing equals what Hannah Arendt calls a space of appearance. Can the non-breath be considered as a place where human plurality and the self emerge (Arendt 2015, 160-163)? Or in other words, can a daily and habitual movement like breathing provide the space for action to appear? Can our breathing act? And if so, do we speak (up) through our breathing? Through listening to the breathing bodies in Grey (Kinga Jaczewska, 2018), Toute une nuit and Rendez-vous d’Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1982 1978) I search for answers to these questions.