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

Abstract

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.