Comments on: Rousseau, Pascal, Tocqueville, Delsol, Scott etc.

By: paul seaton

paul seaton — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:20:17 +0000

John, been a while with The Human Condition, but my recollection is that she explicitly denied human nature (“essentialism”) and substituted the human condition. There was some Heideigger lurking in the background of her thought. (Not Delsol’s, though, as far as I can see.)

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:04:17 +0000

From the erudite David Walsh’s introduction to his magisterial “The Modern Philosophical Revolution, The Luminosity of Existence,” we find:
“The reality of nature is contained not within itself, but within its tension, toward being as such.”(p12)
And:
“Human being, in other words, is defined by questioning that is itself a mode of being, never by a nature that has closed the process through an answer.” (pg.13)

By: John Presnall

John Presnall — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:22:30 +0000

I have read, but am not sure of the case, that Arendt’s discussion of the “human condition” dealt more with the question of praxis–or the vita activa. Arendt sought to resurrect an ancient understanding of politics as practical action for the modern world.

One could criticize this maneuver of the “human condition” as overly theorizing practice, but in terms of change or actual political decision or choice–what Delsol seems to be concerned with surely provides a better conception of politics than is found in typical measures of assessment quantified as factual statements of what is. Delsol knows the danger of mathematical assessments of what is called performativity.

Politics could be deliberation or it could be disputation, but Delsol’s account opens the political actor to possibility as opposed to determination. This is the question of practice.

But there is still the question of theory–or if this sounds too Marxist–one must consider the relationship between speech and deeds as Thucydides presents it in the cauldron of political choice.. “Human nature”, from the point of view of practice seems too constraining in its “vita contemplativa,” in that it seems to stifle action in terms of an abstract rule.

The problem with denying nature ends up in the Melian dialogue. You would do the same if you were in the condition of the Melians and/or Athenians. You must act!

Arendt herself was concerned with the issue of judgment. She turned to Kant, even if she vulgarized Kant in her account of Eichmann.

Ms. Delsol speaks of “good will.” Without any teleology, on what basis can “good will” provide for proper judgment? Is it humanity?

I am not adverse to such thoughts of humanity, but I think they are weak.

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:13:17 +0000

Carl, allow me to suggest, “Hannah Coulter.”

By: Carl Eric Scott

Carl Eric Scott — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:29:05 +0000

Thanks HT. In another life, I'd let Berry convince me to pick up Paterson again.

By: CJ Wolfe

CJ Wolfe — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:55:07 +0000

This is a helpful supplement to what you said at the SCSS Panel on Tocqueville at APSA, Peter. Your reflections remind me alot of the book of Ecclesiastes: “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end”

On a side note, I think an Aristotelian actually could agree with the view you offer here of the restlessness of individual human existence; you’d have to look especially at De Motu Animalium. I don’t agree with Martha Nussbaum on most things, but on Aristotle’s De Motu and the “fragility of goodness” she’s pretty solid.

By: HT

HT — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:48:58 +0000

OFF TOPIC: I see there’s a just-published book by Wendell Berry praising William Carlos Williams, which is reviewed now on the NYRB site. I know Berry is esteemed in this neighborhood, so look for it, guys.

As it happens, I live in Williams’s town, Rutherford, which now sadly hosts a rather pitiful “Williams Center” for “culture” where a bank squats, uninteresting concerts are held, and mainstream movies are desultorily shown in the basement, often in the wrong aspect ratio. I have never been an unadulterated Williams fan, finding unfortunate traces of anti-intellectualism in his work, though it is nice to see Berry paying tribute to a paid-up “modernist”.