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Philosophia: The Thought of Rosa Luxemborg, Simone Weil, and Hannah Arendt
Philosophia brings together, for the first time, the work of three major women thinkers of this century, producing a developing commentary on the human condition as an alternative to the mainstream, masculine, philosophical tradition.
302 pages, Paperback
Published March 5, 1994
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About the author
Andrea Nye
19 books5 followersAndrea Nye (born 1939) is a feminist philosopher and writer. Nye is a Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater for the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department and an active member of the Women's Studies Department. In 1992, Nye received the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater Award for Outstanding Research.
Andrea Nye was born on October 22, 1939, in Philadelphia to attorney Hamilton Connor and home-maker Florence Deans. Nye received a B. A. in philosophy from Radcliffe College (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) in 1961 and a Ph. D in Philosophy from the University of Oregon in 1977. Nye has been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater for decades; first as an assistant professor from 1978 to 1985, then as an associate professor from 1985–1990, followed by a position as a professor of philosophy from 1990–2002. Nye has been a professor emeritus for the philosophy and religious studies department since 2002. Andrea Nye is also a member of the Liberal Studies Division at the Boston Conservatory teaching interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities.
Nye's early work in philosophy of language included a thesis on private language and a monograph on the history of logic from a feminist perspective. In subsequent work, Nye turned more specifically to issues related to gender in language, the place of women in the history of philosophy, and feminist theory. Reviving the work of neglected or misinterpreted women thinkers was of special interest in later work, including translations and commentary on the letters of Elisabeth of the Palatinate to René Descartes (The Princess and the Philosopher), the political thought of Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Simone Weil (Philosophia) and most recently, Diotima’s teaching on erotic desire in Plato’s Symposium (hl)(Socrates and Diotima).
(from Wikipedia)
Andrea Nye was born on October 22, 1939, in Philadelphia to attorney Hamilton Connor and home-maker Florence Deans. Nye received a B. A. in philosophy from Radcliffe College (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) in 1961 and a Ph. D in Philosophy from the University of Oregon in 1977. Nye has been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater for decades; first as an assistant professor from 1978 to 1985, then as an associate professor from 1985–1990, followed by a position as a professor of philosophy from 1990–2002. Nye has been a professor emeritus for the philosophy and religious studies department since 2002. Andrea Nye is also a member of the Liberal Studies Division at the Boston Conservatory teaching interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities.
Nye's early work in philosophy of language included a thesis on private language and a monograph on the history of logic from a feminist perspective. In subsequent work, Nye turned more specifically to issues related to gender in language, the place of women in the history of philosophy, and feminist theory. Reviving the work of neglected or misinterpreted women thinkers was of special interest in later work, including translations and commentary on the letters of Elisabeth of the Palatinate to René Descartes (The Princess and the Philosopher), the political thought of Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Simone Weil (Philosophia) and most recently, Diotima’s teaching on erotic desire in Plato’s Symposium (hl)(Socrates and Diotima).
(from Wikipedia)
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September 17, 2021Ar this time, I am commenting only on a small section of the chapter on Hannah Arendt.
From my own limited reading of Arendt, and from Nye's description, it is easy to say that a pivotal point of Arendtian thought is the necessity of an open, public space wherein a person presents themselves to a diversity of opinion and contradition, allowing the only opening for what might be called movement and possibility. Only here is there real 'thought' , the only place that is not embedded in the already accepted and blatantly necessary. Beyong this public presentation, human life is made up mostly of labor and work- the obtaining of the basic necessities. Working along time honored paths or the most utilitarian directives is most likely the most productive behavior. For any possibility of responding to a new intrusion to the ordinary, of freedom of thought, diversity is the absolute necessity for jiggling the conceptual rules.
It was easy for me, and I can't believe others, to think of Habermas and his open society wherein diverse debate produces egalitarian settlement. But Nye tells me I was wrong:
'This rejection of logic and rationality is the basis of Habermas's dismissal of Arendt's politics. Habermas argues that the constituent rules of speech acts as expressed in pragmatic rules of debate-consistency, for instance- allows a rational consensus between disputants. An Arendtian response might be that to embed logic in the constitutive rules of speech acts imposes an even greater tyranny than the frozen categories of philosophy which can always be metaphorically extended. ' p 257
As I thought about the conflict between Arendt and Habermas, I couldn't help but imagine that Arendt's most prized achievement in this open space of diversity was the moment of uncertainty, whereas Habermas's was the settling into agreement. As Nye suggests, the person frozen into inactivity because she is aware of all the issues is not a bad outcome for Arendt. In the opposite direction, and with perhaps too much consistency, Arendt describes the evil of Eichmann as an unaware plodding in the the tracks of Nazi convention, whereas other research at the time and later suggests that his compliance was much more active and, one might say, creative.
Recently I came across Gianni Vattimo's "Beyond Interpretation: The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy", and I believe he amplifies the differences to be found between Habermas and Arendt in what they wish to achieve within this public space of diverse debate. He makes a distinction within hermeneutics (theories on interpretation) between an ethics of communication and and ethics of redescription. The first is exemplified by Habermas and is the hope of developing ' communication that is not opaque, that is not impeded by inequalities, ideological obscurantism, deliberate distortions or structures of domination.....The ideal of transparency, of the elimination of every opacity in communication, seems to be seriously close to the conception of truth as objectively determined by a 'neutral' subject modeled on the form of metaphysical subjectivity incarnated most recently in the ideal of the modern scientist.'P. 33
Rorty exemplifies his ethics of redescription, as does, for Vittimo, the later Foucault and Deleuze, who insist not on agreement but a constant redescription of oneself and of the world. Of them he writes: if there is still a duty that we can recognize as coherent, it is not of respecting the table of existing values, but that of inventing new tables of values, new lifestyles...new systems of metaphors for speaking of the world... In each of these cases, it is as though interpretation were conceived less as a means to understanding than as an activiity in which the subjectivity of the interpreter is implicated.'p. 35 Arendt falls neatly within this grouping. She is famous for coining the term 'natality' as the hallmark of the human condition. By this she meant that only human beings were marked by birthing, of being born as many times as she could achieve it, as she floundered through hard fought moments of uncertainty.
A possible criticism of Habermas is that he fails to escape the trap of the traditional Western ideal of the neutral observer progressing toward universal truths. Arendt foregoes this universal quest and instead provides the model of a storyteller, subjected to contrasting narratives from the outside, who adjusts her story as needed to get through the foreseeable future. In this, she shows much similarity to the hardcore hermeneutists (it's theory all the way down) such as Gadamer. With this model, she seems well set up to incorporate a multicultural dialogue in her public space. It therefore seems all the more disconcerting that she fails to due so in her more thoroughly political works such as 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' wherein it is hard to escape the impression that the European with high culture ambitions is her only admired human character. There seems to be two Arendts- the one who provides us with the adjusting storyteller as model, and the one who denigrates any culture but her own. I believe a reader could sample Arendt and never know the other existed.
From my own limited reading of Arendt, and from Nye's description, it is easy to say that a pivotal point of Arendtian thought is the necessity of an open, public space wherein a person presents themselves to a diversity of opinion and contradition, allowing the only opening for what might be called movement and possibility. Only here is there real 'thought' , the only place that is not embedded in the already accepted and blatantly necessary. Beyong this public presentation, human life is made up mostly of labor and work- the obtaining of the basic necessities. Working along time honored paths or the most utilitarian directives is most likely the most productive behavior. For any possibility of responding to a new intrusion to the ordinary, of freedom of thought, diversity is the absolute necessity for jiggling the conceptual rules.
It was easy for me, and I can't believe others, to think of Habermas and his open society wherein diverse debate produces egalitarian settlement. But Nye tells me I was wrong:
'This rejection of logic and rationality is the basis of Habermas's dismissal of Arendt's politics. Habermas argues that the constituent rules of speech acts as expressed in pragmatic rules of debate-consistency, for instance- allows a rational consensus between disputants. An Arendtian response might be that to embed logic in the constitutive rules of speech acts imposes an even greater tyranny than the frozen categories of philosophy which can always be metaphorically extended. ' p 257
As I thought about the conflict between Arendt and Habermas, I couldn't help but imagine that Arendt's most prized achievement in this open space of diversity was the moment of uncertainty, whereas Habermas's was the settling into agreement. As Nye suggests, the person frozen into inactivity because she is aware of all the issues is not a bad outcome for Arendt. In the opposite direction, and with perhaps too much consistency, Arendt describes the evil of Eichmann as an unaware plodding in the the tracks of Nazi convention, whereas other research at the time and later suggests that his compliance was much more active and, one might say, creative.
Recently I came across Gianni Vattimo's "Beyond Interpretation: The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy", and I believe he amplifies the differences to be found between Habermas and Arendt in what they wish to achieve within this public space of diverse debate. He makes a distinction within hermeneutics (theories on interpretation) between an ethics of communication and and ethics of redescription. The first is exemplified by Habermas and is the hope of developing ' communication that is not opaque, that is not impeded by inequalities, ideological obscurantism, deliberate distortions or structures of domination.....The ideal of transparency, of the elimination of every opacity in communication, seems to be seriously close to the conception of truth as objectively determined by a 'neutral' subject modeled on the form of metaphysical subjectivity incarnated most recently in the ideal of the modern scientist.'P. 33
Rorty exemplifies his ethics of redescription, as does, for Vittimo, the later Foucault and Deleuze, who insist not on agreement but a constant redescription of oneself and of the world. Of them he writes: if there is still a duty that we can recognize as coherent, it is not of respecting the table of existing values, but that of inventing new tables of values, new lifestyles...new systems of metaphors for speaking of the world... In each of these cases, it is as though interpretation were conceived less as a means to understanding than as an activiity in which the subjectivity of the interpreter is implicated.'p. 35 Arendt falls neatly within this grouping. She is famous for coining the term 'natality' as the hallmark of the human condition. By this she meant that only human beings were marked by birthing, of being born as many times as she could achieve it, as she floundered through hard fought moments of uncertainty.
A possible criticism of Habermas is that he fails to escape the trap of the traditional Western ideal of the neutral observer progressing toward universal truths. Arendt foregoes this universal quest and instead provides the model of a storyteller, subjected to contrasting narratives from the outside, who adjusts her story as needed to get through the foreseeable future. In this, she shows much similarity to the hardcore hermeneutists (it's theory all the way down) such as Gadamer. With this model, she seems well set up to incorporate a multicultural dialogue in her public space. It therefore seems all the more disconcerting that she fails to due so in her more thoroughly political works such as 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' wherein it is hard to escape the impression that the European with high culture ambitions is her only admired human character. There seems to be two Arendts- the one who provides us with the adjusting storyteller as model, and the one who denigrates any culture but her own. I believe a reader could sample Arendt and never know the other existed.
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