Research On Hannah Arendt’s Thought Of Republicanism

Concerning the totalitarianism and the dilemma of modernity occurred in the 20 th century,many thinkers had been strenuously seeking the way out for human beings and exploring where the politics should head towards.As the most brilliant and original political thinker of the 20 th century,Arendt personally experienced the racial persecution of the Nazis and witnessed the dilemma of modernity in American society with its prosperity and development.Under that circumstance,she provided a creative solution to this problem by rebuilding republicanism and returning to vita activa.In order to get rid of the misleading theory of historical progress,Leo Strauss proposed that we should return classical politics to rebuild the honor of human beings.Unlike him,that we should pursue political affairs themselves and focus on the sense of reality and authenticity of politics is what Arendt meant when she talked about “returning”.In this worrying modern world,she tried to find out the limits of human beings in common affairs and examine their existence through their different life styles.Therefore,Arendt thought republicanism which focuses on civic action,positive freedom and political space is the answer for people who are facing the dilemma of modernity.In this process,Arendt opened up the revival of republicanism in the 1950s-1960 s,became a pioneer of new republicanism and laid the foundation for the revival and development of contemporary republicanism.Arendt gave an ontological explanation of the ancient Greek city and the ancient Republic of Rome and considered politics as a kind of life style.Because of their natality and plurality,people get together through speech and action.They establish and maintain a free and apparent space.However,totalitarianism,the dilemma of modernity,the decline of public realm,and the decay of political life made people forget the most authentic state of politics,which is the best way to achieve civil liberty and self-excellence.Therefore,Arendt’s thought of republicanism is mainly about highlighting the practical meaning of politics,which allows her to pursue and achieve an active political life style and establish a persistent political system to defend the right and freedom among citizens.Starting from the natality and plurality of human beings,Arendt discussed the strength of action,opened the three dimension of action,constructed the trinity system of political action,freedom and public realm and finally formed the theoretical logic of republican thought,which is focuses on action and aims at freedom.Thus,the quintessence of Arendt’s thought of republicanism began with the creation of the plural people,completed during the revival of free public space,and stablized in the construction of the Republic.How can action be transformed into a system to expose freedom of self-excellence and achieve the revival of public realm? In the comparative studies of French Revolution and American Revolution,Arendt pointed out,by fully using the power that the founding fathers promised each other,they remade a persistent miracle of ancient Republic of Rome and made the Athenian people themselves pleased.Then,by studying those two revolutions mentioned above,Arendt explored the path to rebuild the Republic,bacsed on which she proposed the system design of the committee Republic.However,limited by the age of history and her personal experiences,Arendt had three inadequacies in her thought of Republic: first,she ignored relations of production.She excluded production,poverty and resource allocation from political life,which emptied the meaning of civic action;second,she paid excessive attention to public realm,misunderstood the meaning of social realm and ignored the public meaning of social governance;third,having unpractical illusions about committee system she made the committee system a utopia which is separated from political reality and practical experience.Therefore,combining Marxism with other contemporary political thoughts,I will amend Arendt’s thought from the following three aspects: from necessary labor to free labor,from public realm to social realm and from committee system to social governance.Hopefully,the amendment can make Arendt’s republicanism meet the realistic needs of modern politics.We will find that Arendt’s republicanism is both classical and modern.She is known as the contemporary exponent of classical republicanism.Because of her outstanding explanation,she made a great contribution to the revival and development of republicanism.Arendt’s Republicanism finally became a kind of political nostalgia and a utopia due to the lack of political sufficiency and practical possibility.However,her thought is still theoretically valuable and effectively practical.On the one hand,Arendt’ thought inherited and transcended classical republicanism open up the revival of modern republicanism,and provided a cautious hope for founding and developing a new political order.On the other hand,Arendt’s republicanism interpretation of public realm,civic action,and political freedom had become important issues of modern Republicanism.It profoundly influenced a group of republicans and communitarians,including Pocock,Sandel,Mac Intyre,Taylor,Habermas,etc.It also provides significant resource and precious legacy for the development of modern western political thought and finally made herself the inheritor and founder of the history of western republicanism.Meantime,facing the facts that both Chinese and western people are embracing consumerism,hedonism,overflowed popular culture,and the reality of that political indifference and lack of public responsibility,and in the premise that we should hold a critical attitude towards to western civilization,uses Arendt’s concept of morality,action and institutionalized systematicness in a critical and practical way and specifically discussed the Mechanism construction of citizenization,participation and legalization to meet the needs of our country’s political development during the period of social transformation and maximize our country’s interests.