Arendt, Rousseau, and Human Plurality in Politics

Arendt, Rousseau, and Human Plurality in Politics
Margaret Canovan
The Journal of Politics, Vol. 45, No. 2 (May, 1983), pp. 286-302

Readers of Arendt's On Revolution have long remarked on her valorization of the American over the French Revolution. In this context, Margaret Canovan's article offers a nuanced analysis of an unexpected topic: Arendt's relation to one of the philosophical heroes of the French Revolution, Rousseau. While Canovan does expand on Arendt's objection to Rousseau along the lines one would expect from On Revolution, she also notes a number of positive connections that contribute to our understanding of Arendt and 20^th century political thought.

Canovan begins by situating Arendt's thought in the rational 18^th century tradition of the Enlightenment rather than social and historical convictions of the 19^th century. Most importantly, in her work on political beginnings, Arendt was drawn to Rousseau for his contribution to social contract theory. Within this focus on initiating moments:  "[b]oth writers believed that contingent human actions, not inevitable historical processes, lie at the heart of politics; and neither believed that rules for establishing good states were revealed to men by God or Nature" (288). In other words, Arendt goes back to the Enlightenment as a period that tries to hold off metaphysical influence in politics, an influence that can be seen to return in the belief in history and progress in the 19^th century. Indeed, Canovan highlights Rousseau's distinction between the natural "man" and artificial "citizen." From this perspective, Arendt's emphasis on citizenship also leads to a concern for the fragility of the state that cannot rely on an external guarantor.

The major difference that Canovan sees between Arendt and Rousseau concerns Rousseau's conception of the citizens ruling themselves through the general will in the sovereign. Here the citizen gives up his private will for the general will and the unity of the this general will has priority in all cases. Rousseau emphasizes that the general will has to be carefully tended: people have to be more or less equal in income and rights and undergo stringent education if one hopes to promote a perspective beyond the private will. Canovan also notes that when it seems that the citizens simply give up their rights to the sovereign after they establish a general will, Rousseau's point is that the sovereign will apply the same principles of reason to a problem as the individual and thus reach the same conclusion if all citizens had addressed it individually.

Taking Arendt's perspective, Canovan writes that: "Rousseau makes heroic but unavailing efforts to render ineffective the fact that there are more of us than one and that we are all unique, each of us having his own standpoint from which to view the world, each his own mind which is capable of in-dependent thought, each his own self which can disclose itself in unexpected action." (292) In other words, on Canovan's reading, Rousseau replaces the dictator with the people who are the origin of the general will, but in giving up the power of this will they end up authorizing another form of dictatorship.

Toward the end of the article, Canovan leaves behind her sharp descriptions of similarities and differences to return to points where Arendt and Rousseau agree to a point. For example, she helpfully describes both Arendt and Rousseau as emphasizing promises and agreements. The difference is that for Arendt, they are offer only provisional stability, rather than the 'once and for all' of the social contract. Humans will not agree on the ultimate aim of their action but "they can concur in loyalty to a common set of worldly institutions" (297). In this schema, public deliberations are needed because each person has the use of reason but reason has to come out in the speech of individuals rather in the assumption of the general will.

In conclusion, Canovan writes that in light of Arendt's political thinking: "[t]he task of the political theorist cannot be to describe an ideal state or to lay down principles of justice for implementation" (300). Her contrast with Rousseau helps understand why this is so: Arendt's conception of plurality removes the single philosopher's claim to political truth. Yet Canovan's article implies that although Arendt warns against a common end she defends of different idealism, one not concerned with the end but the begging of the state and the idea of starting something new that one then defends as a common institution.

-Jeffrey Champlin