Sympathy And Politics:Arendt’s Political Ontology

How to understand the social structure of capitalism and human existence whichcreated by that is an agonizing question of all thinkers in modern times. Arendtinventively analyzed modern revolution from sympathy elements that ignored by thetraditional political philosophers. And she expanded a criticism of the capitalismmodernity on perspective for sympathy. She was particularly concerned about "falsepolitical" of the modern society. This article analyzes the real meaning of Arendt’spolitical ontology and its dilemma from the perspective of philosophy.Introduction: This part mainly introduces the problem, a preliminaryinterpretation of Arendt’s political philosophy in the relationship between politics andsympathy. Arendt thought that sympathy dominated almost all except the AmericanRevolution in the18th century’s political activities, but sympathy into politics as auseless passion leaded to the failure of the revolution and the loss of freedom and soshe thought that is essentially "pre-political" or "anti-political". In the history ofpolitical philosophy, Arendt was the first time replaced by the factors of economy,religion, spirit and so on with a kind of sympathy which seems to be insignificant toanalyze the phenomenon of revolution and the mode of existence of capitalist societypeople, revealing her unique understanding on nature of politics.Chapter1:Finishing materials of sympathy on ethics in modern times, andexplain different understanding of philosophers treating sympathy. Sympathy is takenas the origin of a moral principle or is considered immoral; It is considered to be theimportant basis to people’s life essence, is regarded as a tool to make the loss ofvitality or is considered innate emotional,a kind of value neutrality which is nothingto do with moral. In short,sympathy is being understand basically in the field ofmoral field rather than political field but Arendt focused on political issues. Rottyregarded sympathy as the basis of social solidarity in political field and gavesympathy to the significance of political and social progress but Hannah arendt instead, she thought the sympathy into politics not only failed to bring freedom andunity but also sympthy becoming political virtue showed the political public spherehad become false political.Chapter2: Interpret Arendt analysis of the American revolution and the Frenchrevolution and reveal the true content of the thesis that Arendt argued revolutionariesneeded no sympathy. In Arendt’s view of the American revolution is the true sense ofthe revolution that is free. And can only be called the French revolution is to liberatethat is meeting the necessary of life. Freedom is a byword for politics, liberation isinevitable and they can be not confused. The French revolution triggered by the painof sympathy for the lower classes, and had been dominated for which was seemed as ahighest political virtues. But sympthy, as a kind of inner emotion is always private,quiet, and contains the violence. The most important is that doubt of the incentives ofrevolutionary in the process of the French revolution produced by sympathy whichwas hard to appeared led to the dictatorship of terror,and destroyed the Frenchrevolution.The American revolution avoided sympathy for poor people and too muchfocus on poverty issue and committed to construct a kind of political form of freedom,thus gained the great victory. Arendt believed that the success or failure of the tworevolutions was not key to the so-called historical inevitability, but sympathy whetherhad an effect on the motivation of revolutionaries.Chapter3: Clarify Arendt unique understanding about politics, reveals her uniquepolitical ontology. Arendt through distinguishing labor, work, action to show that thepolitics taking talk and act as content itself is a field of opinions in which thepluralism and diversity is a fundamental feature. Although political public sphere isbased on the economic,it is not into the economy. It is an independent field ofautonomous, reflecting people’s coordinated action which produces power. Althoughpolitics is very fragile, but not be able to introduced to the identity of logic of makingand in the field freedom is the price of political instability. Although politics ischaracterized by public from private appeared inevitability,not all appeared of thepublic is political. Since modern times the rise of "society" to make economic activityand management in the private field of events become a public concern. This only shows illusion-the false politics. Because politics not only has the characteristics ofshowing, but also has the connotation essentially,taking people’s talk and act ascontent.Chapter4: This chapter is mainly to comparative study of Arendt and Marx’scritique and transcendence of modernity. It seems to Arendt, although Marx realizedthe rupture of the western tradition, but Marx’s emphasis on the economy and thepraise of labor led to Marx remain essentially following the inevitability of logic.Marx’s indifference to politics and taking the root of all the problems back tonecessity of economic foundation,in Arendt’s opinion,is undoubtedly that Marxignored the fundamental boundaries and differences between freedom and necessity.Although Arendt has important theoretical significance on the critique of modernity,but she misunderstood Marx to a great extent, as Marx’s labor is not the labor ofArendt understanding. For Marx’s labor contains the political connotation and hasdialectical features. Arendt transcended modernity crisis by the return of thepolitics.Comparatively speaking, Marx was deeper and more fudamental,for he wasbeyond the capital logic scheme "in a more profound modernity to treat traumatic". Ofcourse the significance of Arendt’s political philosophy is great. Totalitarian politicalcriticism of Arendt is still has the unparalleled depth and meaning.Above all, Arendt taking sympathy as the starting point of modern socialcriticism and analysis is very original. As an important voice in a pluralistic society, inspite of many problems are in her theory,it will still be deeply inspired people tothink of the problem of human politics.