Phenomenological Reviews

Maria Robaszkiewicz, Michael Weinman: Hannah Arendt and Politics

Title: Hannah Arendt and Politics
Series: Thinking Politics
Author: Maria Robaszkiewicz, Michael Weinman
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Release Date: 2024
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232

Reviewed by: Samantha Fazekas (Trinity College Dublin)

In their book, Hannah Arendt and Politics, Maria Robaszkiewicz and Michael Weinman not only develop a comprehensive and rich account of Hannah Arendt’s conception of thinking and judging. But their analysis also constitutes an act of thinking and judging itself, as they employ Arendt’s “exercises in political thinking” (2023: 3) to understand the political crises of Arendt’s time as well as our own. Following the “Introduction,” which sketches Arendt’s elusive notion of “exercises in political thinking,” comes Part I, “Arendt and Politics: Thinking about the World as a Public Space,” which consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: “Action,” Chapter 2: “Between Human Action and the Life of the Mind,” and Chapter 3: “Exercises in Political Thinking.” Part I provides an excellent account of Arendt’s conception of politics, the human condition, as well as thinking and judging.

In Part II, “Arendt and Political Thinking: Judging the World(s) We Share,” Robaszkiewicz and Weinman offer up a wide variety of political (and social) topics for debate. In Arendtian fashion, they think about the crises that Arendt was confronted with herself, namely, the conflict between the philosopher and the polis (reflected in the Heidegger controversy) and the Eichmann trial, explored in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. However, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman do not limit their analysis to the political concerns that Arendt sought to understand. Instead, they apply her exercises in political thinking to the crises and political concerns of our time. In Chapter 6, “The Earth, Education, and Human Action,” the authors tackle one of our most pressing political concerns: the climate crisis. By taking the Fridays for Future protest as a “case study” (2023: 199), Robaszkiewicz and Weinman emphasize the vital role that children play in shaping and changing the world.

Chapter 7, “Social Justice and Feminist Agency,” explores an appropriate way to politicize social concerns, thereby making feminist action possible within an Arendtian framework. Chapter 8, “Human Rights and Popular Sovereignty,” sets “political personhood,” not nationality, as the criterion for membership in a political community (2023: 157). Lastly, Chapter 9, “Thinking With and Against Arendt about Race, Racism, and Anti-racism,” exposes the blind spots in Arendt’s thinking about race, her Eurocentrism, and subsequently employs Arendt’s conception of enlarged mentality as a means for incorporating diverse perspectives into our own.

Robaszkiewicz and Weinman navigate between thoroughly sketching the secondary literature on each proposed topic, advancing their own original opinions, and maintaining the freedom of their readers to think and judge for themselves. The authors thus tease out and exemplify what it means to engage in exercises in political thinking. To this end, the “Introduction” sheds light on Arendt’s elusive and ambiguous notion of exercises in political thinking. As the authors point out, this notion appears as an “inconspicuous remark” because Arendt only mentions it in the title and “Introduction” of Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (2023: 1). It is therefore no wonder that this notion has not been picked up in the secondary literature.[1]

However, Robaszkiewicz’ and Weinman’s novel contribution to the secondary literature is their contention that Arendt’s exercises in political thinking lie at the very core of her work. As they claim, “Arendt’s writings, regardless of their scope, specific subject matter, or the time they were written, can function as examples of such exercises” (2023: 1). Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus establish a new and powerful approach to considering Arendt’s work. “Throughout her body of work,” the authors maintain, Arendt “never loses sight of her primary goal: to understand and judge the phenomena of political life” (2023: 1). It is generally acknowledged that understanding political events is Arendt’s main objective. However, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman shine new light on Arendt’s oeuvre by viewing it as an instantiation of exercises in political thinking, which is a means for gaining an understanding of the world.

The wide array of topics covered in Hannah Arendt and Politics thus serve as examples for how to think and judge about the world. By applying Arendt’s exercises in political thinking to the political crises and issues of our own time, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman illuminate the continued relevance of Arendt’s thought. “By examining more closely Arendt’s concept of exercises in political thinking,” the authors claim, “our work understands itself as an opening for further research into the practical applicability of her political thinking” (2023: 201). In this way, each chapter offers an example of a possible judgment on a given topic, from Arendt’s misjudgment of Heidegger to framing the Friday for Future protests as an example of the political capability of children to change the world. By exemplifying what it means to think and judge, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus equip their readers with a framework through which to think about the concerns and crises of our time.

At the same time, the authors remain true to Arendt’s thought, insofar as they do not prescribe how their readers ought to think about and judge political events. As Robaszkiewicz and Weinman maintain, “we also express our judgments and we do so in an explicitly Arendtian sense: not trying to tell our readers what they should think, but inviting them as dialogue partners to think and judge together about the world that we share” (2023: 71). Thus, the accuracy of their approach is that they remain true to the freedom involved in thinking and judging. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman could describe themselves in the way they describe Arendt: “perhaps like Socrates: a gadfly irritating the people of Athens to motivate them to thinking and better understanding of the world and themselves” (2023: 153). Like Arendt, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman inspire their readers to think and judge critically and freely, so that they reach their own judgments and conclusions. Hannah Arendt and Politics therefore truly embodies what the authors claim lies at the core of Arendt’s own work: exercises in political thinking.

In Chapter 1, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman proceed by accurately and succinctly sketching the core tenets of Arendt’s thought by following Arendt’s own unsystematic method, which is “nothing more than to think what we are doing” (Arendt 1958: 5). Since Arendt defines the activity of thinking as inconclusive or “resultless” (Arendt 2003a: 167), the authors thus paint the broad strokes of Arendt’s political thought. Not in “building block format,” but rather, they “pave Arendt’s conceptual paths in small steps, from one notion to the next, illuminating the fragile framing of her theory” (2023: 11). Accordingly, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman employ the concepts of “natality, plurality, action, power, freedom, the private and the public, and the social” as “guideposts” (2023: 12) to understand Arendt’s political thought.

Their method thus does not over-systematize Arendt’s thought, but rather establishes a red thread that twists and turns through paradoxes, weaving key concepts into a rich and colorful fabric that allows us to see Arendt’s thought as a whole. For example, the authors establish a link between the activity of labor and the realization of the political phenomena that Arendt cherishes, e.g., speech and action, plurality, and political freedom. In what is meant to be a summary of Arendt’s political thought, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus already make a novel contribution to the secondary literature. While they provide a standard definition of labor as responsible for maintaining the natural life cycle, they tease out the political implication of labor that Arendt seems to overlook herself.

Generally, labor is regarded as pre-political in the sense that it tends to necessity (Arendt 1958: 31), thereby setting persons up for political participation. What Robaszkiewicz and Weinman add however is that the body is the medium through which citizens speak and interact with each other. As they contend:

This description of labor might seem deflated but we must not forget that human embodiment is one of the central conditions for all activities we ever undertake. Without a body that we take time to nourish, care for, and cultivate, as subjects we would have no worldly reality (2023: 16).

In this way, embodiment can be regarded as the physical condition for the possibility of political action and the realization of all public-political phenomena. Without engaging in labor, neither political participation, natality, plurality, nor political freedom could unfold in the world.

In Chapter 2, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman correctly parse out three versions of thinking, which are often overlooked and conflated in the secondary literature. Namely, metaphysical or philosophical thinking; dialectical thinking (the Socratic two-in-one); and political thinking (enlarged mentality). I will focus on the first two versions and will return to the third later. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman rightly note that metaphysical thinking undergirds the conflict between the philosopher and the polis (city). This follows because the philosopher must withdraw from the world to pursue eternal and universal truths through contemplation. As such, the philosopher is fundamentally at odds with the polis and political involvement. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus convey the tension between the contemplative and active life as Arendt sees it: “thinking as such has little use for society” (Arendt 2006h: 190)” (2023: 39).

In contrast, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman frame the second type of thinking, namely, dialectical thinking, as relevant to the political community. They elucidate what Arendt means with dialectical thinking by turning to Socrates. While Socrates too withdraws from the world, “in his thinking he is alone, but not lonely” (2023: 40). Even though Socrates must retreat from the world in order to think, his internal conversation partner keeps him company. As such, dialectical thinking contains an inner form of plurality and intersubjectivity, insofar as it represents a dialogue between two people (Arendt 2003b: 90). This leads Robaszkiewicz and Weinman to the conclusion that dialectical thinking “turns out to be a thoroughly practical activity, even if of a very particular kind” (2023: 40). Similarly to other scholars, such as Berkowitz (2010), Fazekas (2024), and Topolski (2015), Robaszkiewicz and Weinman present dialectical thinking as world-oriented. Precisely because the internal dialogue between Socrates and himself mirrors public debate (Arendt 2017: 625-626).

Specifically, the authors argue that the political relevance of dialectical thinking is that it fosters moral character development, underlining political speech and action with moral responsibility (2023: 45-46). On the one hand, their claim squares with Arendt’s link between dialectical thinking and morality. As Robaszkiewicz and Weinman correctly observe, morality is “a by-product of the activity of thinking itself (SQMP 106)” (2023: 46), insofar as it is achieved by conversing with oneself openly and harmoniously. The authors explain that an honest internal dialogue therefore prevents self-deception and self-contradiction (2023: 45).

On the other hand, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman concede that their proposition appears to contradict Arendt’s stringent demarcation between morality and politics (2023: 46). Arendt upholds this division because morality is fundamentally subjective (Arendt 2003b: 97), which opposes the intersubjectivity and plurality that marks political debate. This follows because the golden standard that guides dialectical thinking, for Arendt as for Socrates, is being able to ‘live with oneself’ (Arendt 2003b: 78). Basing morality on internal harmony makes it subjective, seeing as what persons can live with is highly changeable. As Arendt admits herself, moral judgments “can change considerably and uncomfortably from person to person, from country to country, from century to century” (Arendt 2003b: 101).

Yet Robaszkiewicz and Weinman claim that dialectical thinking underscores political participation with moral responsibility. Thus, they suggest a link between morality and politics:

We may see the relation between them as an instance of the butterfly effect: as a by-product of thinking, the constitution of the person influences all her actions. Since action takes place between people, it always has a moral dimension (2023: 46).

While they point out that there is no guarantee that citizens will ignite and maintain an internal dialogue with themselves (2023: 47), the moral imperative is clear.[2] If citizens do not converse with themselves, they run the risk of contradicting themselves, and hence not being able to live with themselves.

Robaszkiewicz and Weinman unfortunately leave the precise connection between moral responsibility and political action implicit. There are three reasons that make it difficult to connect the dots. First, Arendt does not make it easy to link morality to politics, owing to her commitment to keep morality and politics entirely separate. Second, and as the authors acknowledge, “Arendt herself sees this connection as somewhat ephemeral” (2023: 46). Third, Arendt’s understanding of morality is self-referential and highly subjective, which presents difficulties when squaring it with the world-interest, plurality, and the intersubjectivity of the political world. However, the following questions remain: How is the “moral dimension” inherent in political action expressed in a way that makes it amenable to politics? What assures the world-orientedness of moral responsibility if Arendt’s golden rule is nothing other than being able to live with oneself? If political action is world-oriented, then it follows that moral responsibility (in a way) should be as well. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman seem to favor this interpretation when they hold that dialectical thinking “improve[s] both the moral and political competence of democratic citizens” (2023: 47).

Although this answer remains implicit in Chapter 2, it can be teased out in Chapter 5 by turning to Robaszkiewicz’ and Weinman’s analysis of Arendt’s “ironic tone” (2023: 96) in her judgment of Adolf Eichmann. In this chapter, the authors interpret Arendt’s irony in her assessment of Eichmann as a means for the public appearance of her personality (2023: 101). In this way, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman capture the importance of the delivery of judgments, as opposed to their “particular content” (2023: 101). As the authors rightly note, Arendt’s irony in delivering her judgment of Eichmann reveals who she is and how she sees the world in her own unique way.

Their interpretation squares nicely with Arendt’s insistence that the appearance of our personalities is a fundamentally public-political phenomenon over which individuals have no control (Arendt 1958: 179). It is against this claim that Robaszkiewicz’ and Weinman’s portrayal of Arendt should be read. For the authors argue that the tonality of Arendt’s characterization of Eichmann has been questioned and misunderstood (2023: 101). From Arendt’s perspective, perhaps it is the lack of control that persons have over their appearance that has caused a discrepancy in the way Arendt judged Eichmann and the way her verdict has been received. To substantiate their claim, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman focus on “how she wrote (and spoke) even more than what she did in judging Eichmann;” and how her “‘wildly ironic’” (2023: 101) tone has been misunderstood.

Accordingly, the authors take Gershom Scholem’s criticism of Arendt as an example of misinterpreting Arendt’s irony in response to Eichmann (2023: 98). As Robaszkiewicz and Weinman explain, Scholem found Arendt’s irony not only misplaced, but also indicative of her lack of love for her own people (Knott 2017: 203-204; 2023: 102). In response, Arendt contends that Scholem misunderstood her irony. She did not absolve Eichmann of culpability for committing crimes against humanity. Instead, Arendt believed she was simply recounting Eichmann’s statements in an ironic tone (2023: 102). Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus clarify that Arendt’s irony was her unique mode of judging Eichmann.

The objection to Eichmann [the book], Arendt is saying, is actually an objection to her subjectivity: not really the particular content of her judgments, but the personality that comes across in her manner of expressing that content (2023: 101).

This leads the authors to claim that irony is not only a means for the public appearance of the who. But it is also a means for sustaining public debate when confronted with unprecedented political events (2023: 102). Irony is thus portrayed as a mode of judging that reinvigorates public debate, and hence preserves the political world.

Furthermore, uncovering Arendt’s irony as the only viable response to unprecedented political events could have provided Robaszkiewicz and Weinman with a more precise connection between morality and politics. Arendt’s ironic response to Eichmann thus clarifies the questions raised above: How is the “moral dimension” inherent in political action expressed in a way that makes it amenable to politics? What assures the world-orientedness of moral responsibility if Arendt’s golden rule is nothing other than being able to live with oneself? A potential answer could be that the moral imperative to externalize one’s internal dialogue sustains and preserves public debate, and by extension the political world. Arendt’s particular way of acting on this moral imperative was to frame Eichmann’s statements in an ironic tone.

Accordingly, what makes moral responsibility less self-referential and more world-oriented is perhaps the realization that expressing one’s inner dialogue has the potential to promote the continuity and integrity of the political world. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman seem to imply this when they claim, albeit in reference to political thinking, “the public performance of irony as the manner of passing reflective judgment is integral to enacting one’s sense of personal responsibility as a democratic citizen” (2023: 107).[3] This statement demonstrates why the connection between moral responsibility and political action remains somewhat unclear. While Robaszkiewicz and Weinman distinguish between dialectical and political thinking, this distinction becomes muddled in their analysis of Arendt’s response to Eichmann.

However, there is a way to account for a possible connection between moral responsibility and political action while maintaining a distinction between dialectical and political thinking. Realizing that expressing one’s internal dialogue has the potential to spark public debate is the moment when dialectical thinking turns into political thinking, thereby making moral responsibility less self-referential and more world-oriented. This squares with Robaszkiewicz’ and Weinman’s claim that reflective judgment ties moral responsibility to political action (2023: 107). This realization thus constitutes a bridge between dialectical thinking and political action, mediated by political thinking.

Moreover, the third form of thinking, namely, political thinking, is presented in Chapter 3. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman sketch political thinking conceived of as enlarged mentality, which Arendt plucks from Kant’s aesthetic reflective judgment. The most salient aspect of their account is that Arendt follows Kant by conceiving of enlarged mentality as a reflective ability. In contrast, many scholars, such as Disch (1993), Flynn (1988), Passerin d’Entrèves (1994), Pitkin (1981), and Young (2001), have misread Arendt’s version of enlarged mentality as a public ability. However, as Robaszkiewicz and Weinman make clear, enlarged mentality sparks a “speculative” plurality and “speculative community” (2023: 54), which occurs when persons think in the place of someone else. The authors thus proceed by teasing out the elements of reflective judgment that appeal to Arendt: the plurality incited by enlarged mentality (2023: 54); the intersubjective validity, impartiality, and communicability of aesthetic judgments (2023: 54-59).

Subsequently, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman introduce a valid point that problematizes the veracity of Arendt’s notion of enlarged mentality. They wonder, “[c]an we really think in place of someone else, let alone everyone else?” (2023: 55). This follows because we cannot truly know what it is like to judge from someone else’s perspective. The authors thus criticize Arendt’s choice of example when elucidating political thinking. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman explain, “she suggests a thought experiment, in which she imagines how she would feel living in a slum from the perspective of a slum dweller (SQMP 140), and she frames this example as if it was not a problem whatsoever to do so” (2023: 55). The issue is twofold. First, if one has not experienced what it is like to live in such a situation, then one cannot fully inhabit the perspective of someone who has. Arendt seems to suggest as much when she holds that “one trains one’s imagination to go visiting” (Arendt 1992: 43; 2023: 55).

While Arendt’s example fails, reading her reflections on enlarged mentality as a whole allows us to arrive at the type of exercise the authors believe is more accurate. As Robaszkiewicz and Weinman have it,

one can attempt to find a third perspective, in which the judging subject simultaneously remains herself and brackets her own position: the one in which she still judges as herself but, in doing so, she imagines multiple other perspectives, which are not her own, and thinks them through in a critical way (2023: 56).

Engaging in critical introspection, while not knowing exactly what it is like to think in someone else’s shows, is precisely the hallmark of Arendt’s version of enlarged mentality. While we can neither extricate ourselves from our own perspective fully, nor inhabit someone else’s perspective perfectly, what matters is that we ‘enlarge’ our mentality and aim for our judgments to be “more representative” (Arendt 2003b, 141; 2023: 55) of the political world.

This leads into the second point. As Robaszkiewicz and Weinman maintain, our ability to invoke possible perspectives, and hence our very ability to judge politically, is flawed. As the authors point out, we might not envision someone else’s perspective accurately, let alone know what it is truly like for them to see the world. Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus hold, “[i]t is clear that in this process we might simply be wrong in our representation of other persons’ perspectives” (2023: 56). The authors link the failure of judgment up nicely with Arendt’s conception of opinion as partial, fleeing, and vulnerable. Arendt conceives of opinion, as the authors rightly note, in line with Socrates, namely, as “‘what appears to me’ (dokei moi)” (2023: 56). While opinions should always incorporate other possible perspectives, what Robaszkiewicz and Weinman home in on, is that opinions are nevertheless grounded in subjectivity.[4] That is, one can only ever engage in enlarged mentality from one’s own viewpoint. As such, political thinking and judging will always be limited, flawed, and sometimes completely mistaken. The novelty of their reading is that they present political thinking as “a very fragile practice, in which neither the journey nor the destination is certain” (2023: 56).

At the same time, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman maintain that political thinking is not an altogether futile undertaking. While we might fail in our thinking and judging, what motivates us to try again is to keep the political world alive. As the authors hold, “Arendt’s keenest and most lasting observation: the political, which is what makes us human at all, entails an ongoing practice of exercises in political thinking” (2023: 192). Robaszkiewicz and Weinman thus correctly observe that political thinking is a never-ending process of improving and correcting our judgments. On the one hand, this can be achieved by taking new perspectives into account when enlarging our mentality (2023: 200).

On the other hand, conceiving of political thinking as a “practice” means that “the potential exercise of political judgment is never fully actualized” (2023: 200). The open-endedness of political thinking thus ensures that persons continue to improve and correct their judgments – with the hope that they will learn to judge well and more accurately each time. We can therefore view Hannah Arendt and Politics as an open-ended, non-prescriptive yet loosely instructive, performative guide for thinking and judging through the political events that marked Arendt’s time, as well as the current and future political events of our time. As such, Robaszkiewicz and Weinman fulfill their aim of unearthing “the hidden treasure of [Arendt’s] political philosophy” (2023: 198).

Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Arendt, Hannah. 1992. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Arendt, 2003a. “Thinking and Moral Considerations.” In Responsibility and Judgment, edited by Jerome Kohn, 159-192. New York: Schocken Books.
Arendt, 2003b. “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy.” In Responsibility and Judgment, edited by Jerome Kohn, 49-146. New York: Schocken Books.
Arendt, Hannah. 2006h. Vom Leben des Geistes. Munich and Zurich: Piper.
Arendt, Hannah. 2017. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York and London: Penguin Classics.
Bar On, Bat-Ami. 2002. The Subject of Violence: Arendtean Exercises in Understanding. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Berkowitz, Roger. 2010. “Solitude and the Activity of Thinking.” In Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics, edited by Roger Berkowitz, Jeffrey Katz, and Thomas Keenan, 237-246. New York: Fordham University Press.
Bot, Michael. 2013. “Irony as an Antidote to Thoughtlessness.” Amor Mundi, July 10. https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/irony-as-an-antidote-to-thoughtlessness-2013-10-07
Disch 1993. “More Truth than Fact: Storytelling as Critical Understanding in the Writings of Hannah Arendt.” Political Theory Vol. 21, No. 4 (November): 665-694.
Fazekas, Samantha. 2024. “Leaving PhronesisBehind: Arendt’s Turn to Kant,” in Works of Philosophy and Their Reception (WPR). Edited by Nicholas Dunn. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://www.degruyter.com/database/WPR/entry/wpr.28861265/html
Flynn 1988. “Arendt’s Appropriation of Kant’s Theory of Judgment.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology Vol, 19, no. 2: 128-140.
Gines, Kathryn T. 2014. Arendt and the Negro Question. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Knott, Marie Luise, ed. 2017. The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Koivusalo, Markku. 2010. “Hannah Arendt’s Angels and Demons: Ten Spiritual Exercises.” In Hannah Arendt: Practice, Thought and Judgment, edited by Mika Ojakangas, 105-150. Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.
Passerin d’Entrèves, Maurizio. 1994. The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt. London & New York: Routledge.
Pitkin, 1981. “Justice: On Relating Private and Public.” Political Theory Vol. 9, No. 3 (Aug.): 327-352.
Robaszkiewicz, Maria. 2017. Übungen im politischen Denken: Hannah Arendts Schriften als Einleitung der politischen Praxis. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Robaszkiewicz, Maria, and Michael Weinman. 2023. Hannah Arendt and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Topolski, Anya. 2015. Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality. London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
Young, Iris Marion. 2001. “Asymmetrical Reciprocity: On Moral Respect, Wonder, and Enlarged Thought.” In Judgment, Imagination, and Politics: Themes from Kant and Arendt, edited by Ronald Beiner and Jennifer Nedelsky, 205-228. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

[1] Robaszkiewicz and Weinman list the following accounts that deal with Arendt’s exercises in political thinking: Bar On (2002); Koivusalo (2010); and Robaszkiewicz (2017); (2023: 1).

[2] The term, “moral imperative,” is used here in the loosest sense possible, seeing as moral decision-making, for Arendt, does not establish any rules for moral actions (Arendt 2003a: 78).

[3] Robaszkiewicz and Weinman cite Michael Bot (2013) as making a similar point (2023: 105).

[4] Robaszkiewicz and Weinman cite Gines (2014) as developing a similar point (2023: 192-193).

Michael Großheim, Damir Smiljanić (Eds.): Ludwig Klages und die Neue Phänomenologie, Karl Alber, 2024

Ludwig Klages und die Neue Phänomenologie Book Cover

Title:

Ludwig Klages und die Neue Phänomenologie

Series:

Neue Phänomenologie

Author:

Michael Großheim, Damir Smiljanić (Eds.)

Publisher:

Karl Alber

Release Date:

2024

Format:

Hardback

Pages:

506

Publisher Page

Niklas Woermann: Seeing Style, J.B. Metzler Berlin, 2024

Seeing Style: How Style Orients Phenopractices across Action, Media, Space, and Time Book Cover

Title:

Seeing Style: How Style Orients Phenopractices across Action, Media, Space, and Time

Author:

Niklas Woermann

Publisher:

J.B. Metzler Berlin

Release Date:

2024

Format:

Hardback

Pages:

XV, 626

Publisher Page

Michael Barber: Resilience and Responsiveness: Alfred Schutz’s Finite Provinces of Meaning

Resilience and Responsiveness: Alfred Schutz’s Finite Provinces of Meaning Book Cover

Title: Resilience and Responsiveness: Alfred Schutz’s Finite Provinces of Meaning
Series: Contributions to Phenomenology (CTPH, volume 129)
Author: Michael Barber
Publisher: Springer
Release Date: 2024
Format: Hardback
Pages: X, 228

Reviewed by: Daniela Griselda López (CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Michael Barber’s Resilience and Responsiveness: Alfred Schutz’s Finite Provinces of Meaning represents a notable contribution to the study of Schutz’s provinces of meaning. Published on the cusp of the 80th anniversary of Schutz’s seminal essay On Multiple Realities, this book holds particular significance, both in light of Barber’s scholarly trajectory and the historical impact of Schutz’s work.

In the first chapter, Barber highlights resilience and responsiveness as central themes in Schutz’s approach, presenting them as pivotal to comprehending the full scope of his work. Although Schutz himself did not explicitly use these terms, Barber argues that the concepts and their implications serve as a powerful interpretive lens for examining his ideas as a whole. In addition, these concepts gain significance in the context of recent debates that address the confrontation between the Schutzian paradigm and other theoretical perspectives.

In this regard, the book engages with recent advances in the field of Schutzian phenomenologically oriented sociology (Chapter 2), which emphasize the notion of “imposed relevances” as a response to the interpretations of Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Zygmunt Bauman. These scholars argue that the Schutzian paradigm fails to address issues of coercion and power. Indeed, within the framework of these discussions, the notion of imposed relevances has been revitalized in recent defenses of Schutz’s social and political theory. Here, Barber brings renewed attention to the concept and demonstrates its pervasive and varied nature. Going further, he seeks to show “the often-unseen positive obverse of such relevances, namely, the multiple creative ways in which we come to terms with the panoply of imposed relevances.” According to Barber, reading Schutz does not evoke a prevailing sense of pessimism, as if we were weighed down or defeated by such imposed relevances. Instead, a different factor is consistently at play—one that aligns with the pragmatism Schutz sees as central to everyday life: resilience.

On Imposed Relevances and Resilience

Imposed relevances consist of the events, persons, or objects we encounter that upset our current systems of intrinsic relevances, that is, our preferred ranking of values, which, in conjunction with our systems of typifications, enable us to categorize, organize, and manage everyday life. When we encounter these imposed relevances, we are often compelled to engage with them reflectively in order to come to terms with their impact. Similarly, in political and social life, we continually confront policies, practices, and other human beings that challenge the projects dictated by our intrinsic relevances and impose constraints or limitations upon us. In this context, Barber approaches intrinsic and imposed relevances not as a dichotomy, but as a dialectic, highlighting the dynamic interplay between imposed relevances and what he identifies as resilience. This discussion suggests that imposed relevances must be understood in a broad sense.

The author elucidates this dialectic by examining the varied nature of imposed relevances, beginning with bodily and epistemological engagements with the world. Furthermore, imposed relevances manifest within the eidetic and ontological structures of both the natural and social worlds, as well as in efforts to assert mastery over everyday life. Notably, these imposed relevances encompass spatiotemporal distances and strata that are accessible through movement, interlocutors who are partially comprehensible despite differences, and the boundaries of the everyday life-world, which may be superseded by an attitudinal shift. Of particular interest is the level of coming to terms with the imposed transcendencies of other persons, where gaps between individuals are partially bridged through alternative forms of signification—a process that echoes Schutz’s reflections on the outgroup and the stranger. Culminating this analysis of different transcendencies, Schutz identifies finite provinces of meaning, which, unlike the transcendency of the other still anchored in the everyday life-world, pertain to worlds beyond everyday life.

When encountering imposed relevances, individuals are often compelled to reflectively come to terms with them. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic forced humanity to confront decisions about how to work, which risks to take, and which preventive strategies to implement. Barber argues that adopting finite provinces of meaning in everyday life can be understood as a resilient response to such imposed relevances. For example, when everyday life becomes boring, individuals might enter the province of play; when tragedy strikes a community, they might turn to religious rituals to attribute meaning to their suffering; or when slavery dominates everyday life, oppressed people may resort to folkloric humor as a means to vent their anger against their oppressors. This allows them to resist succumbing to the despair, depression, or submission that slavery typically engenders in its victims. The creation of an institution parallel to slavery—folklore—surrounded by protections against the slave-owners’ desire to crush any resistance, represents a socio-structural way of coming to terms or confronting the institutionally imposed relevances of slavery. Barber asserts that the development of this “para-institution of folklore humor” exemplifies resilience in the face of one of the most brutal systems of control and domination ever devised. As such, the development and engagement with alternative finite provinces of meaning illustrate the intricate interplay between imposed relevances and resilient human responses.

All the provinces of meaning explored by Barber—play, music, ritual, and humor— are explicitly identified by Schutz as distinct realms of meaning. Regarding ritual and humor, Barber revisits his earlier project from his 2017 book, Religion and Humor as Emancipating Provinces of Meaning, with a renewed and focused emphasis on religious and spiritual ritual experiences, as well as African-American folkloric humor. Additionally, he provides a detailed account of two provinces that Schutz only briefly mentioned: play and music.

The Province of Play

After presenting play as a province of meaning in Chapter 3 and demonstrating how play uniquely instantiates the six features of the cognitive style of any province of meaning, Barber proceeds in Chapter 4 to draw out its implications for resilience, everyday life, and ethics. In this chapter, the author addresses the objections that Schutz’s theory of typifications may lead to ossification and “tunnel vision” unless supplemented by spontaneity. In response, Barber highlights Schutz’s comprehensive understanding of imposed relevances and resilience, as well as the role of play as a resource for resisting the sclerotic tendencies raised by this critique. In this regard, he argues that engaging in play itself becomes an act of resistance and resilience against the tendencies of everyday life to excessively regiment the self. The playful process of escaping the imposed relevances of everyday life, only to recreate variations of these relevances within play and subsequently exhibit a recurrent, restless resilience in coming to terms with these new layers of impositions, is also observable in everyday life.

Furthermore, this chapter asserts that play can lay the groundwork for ethical behavior by fostering interactive responsiveness among participants. According to Barber, rather than opposing ethics, Schutz’s view implies that play can serve as a precursor to ethical interactions, encouraging mutual attunement and collaboration as essential components for achieving shared ethical values. Barber emphasizes that play promotes a form of ethical sensitivity that, while not reaching the explicit “responsibility” described by Emmanuel Levinas, creates an environment of mutual engagement and attentiveness. Schutz views these interactions as arising from what he calls “imposed relevances”—the meaningful intrusions of others into one’s experience that invite cooperative responsiveness. In play, these interactions are not forced but naturally encourage individuals to attune to one another, fostering “collaboration in the struggle to realize aesthetic and other types of value together.” While Schutz does not equate play directly with Levinasian responsibility, Barber suggests that the dynamics of responsiveness in play lay a foundational structure for ethical behavior.

Intersubjectivity and the Experience of Music

Chapters 5 and 6 can be read together or in dialogue, as they complement each other in several respects. Chapter 5 begins with an exploration of the embodied, emotive, and affective aspects of musical experience, positioning music as a finite province of meaning characterized by its unique cognitive style. Building on Schutz’s essay, “Making Music Together,” which analyzes the social interactions inherent in the musical process, the chapter extends Schutz’s insights to deepen the understanding of intersubjectivity. Key implications include the irruption of the “Thou” into our pre-reflective experience, similar to how music affects us mimetically, and the immediate absorption in the other’s temporal flow, where a pure “Thou-orientation” becomes impossible. The chapter also addresses the asymmetrical focus on the other’s communication, both in music and in extended face-to-face interactions, and the difficulty of reflecting on the “we-relationship” without disrupting it. Additionally, it highlights the unique tuning-in to the other as well as the challenges of typifications in capturing the polythetic unfolding of the other’s experiences.

In Chapter 6, Barber builds on the understanding of social relationships developed in the previous chapter to explore a line of inquiry that Schutz himself did not pursue. Whereas Schutz typically describes provinces of meaning by examining each of their six cognitive features in isolation, Barber delves into how these features interact with one another, specifically by examining how non-social features—such as epoché, form of spontaneity, tension of consciousness, sense of self, and temporality—affect the dimension of sociality. Focusing on the provinces of music, play, and everyday life, Barber argues that non-pragmatic finite provinces of meaning foster a form of “responsiveness.” However, he contends that this responsiveness does not reach the level of Levinasian “responsibility.”

Barber notes, though, that certain instances, such as jazz performance, can illustrate the transition from responsiveness to responsibility, as he explores in the final section of the chapter. This possibility of responsiveness and responsibility coinciding, Barber argues, is fully consistent with Levinas’s thought, as he identifies ethical responsibility even in the most mundane situations. In jazz, musicians engage in spontaneous, pre-reflective interactions that go beyond technical responsiveness to each other’s cues. They exhibit what Barber describes as an ethical responsibility—such as when a musician steps in to support or cover for another’s unexpected silence or missed cue. This requires attentiveness and care for each other, reflecting a moral commitment rather than just an aesthetic or performance-based interaction. Jazz players display a unique blend of freedom and ethical attunement, balancing spontaneity with respect and responsibility toward one another. This attunement becomes a type of “jazz etiquette,” in which musicians prioritize the group’s harmony over individual performance, embodying a relational ethic that merges responsiveness with a deeper moral engagement.

Barber intertwines the themes of imposed relevances, resilience, and responsiveness, proposing that the other can function not merely as a disruptive imposition but as a “beneficent imposed relevance.” Drawing on Levinas’s ideas, Barber suggests that while encountering the other might initially seem to threaten one’s intrinsic relevances, it can ultimately promote self-empowerment and ethical growth. Figures like Martin Luther King and Gandhi exemplify this by transforming the threat of death into resilient commitments to justice. Barber extends Levinas’s idea, arguing that imposed relevances, including suffering, can break through self-centered perspectives and promote liberation, grounding one’s identity in ethical responsibility. Rather than viewing imposed relevances solely as threats, Barber encourages considering them as opportunities for reflection and freedom. In this light, even spiritual and communal experiences may act as liberating imposed relevances, guiding individuals toward ethical responsiveness and selfless service.

The Religious/Spiritual Ritual Province: Resilience and Responsiveness to Others

Chapter 7 illuminates how the religious ritual province can contribute to the resilience and responsiveness to others, which this book claims to be central themes for Schutz. As in previous chapters, Barber focuses on social relationships and extends this analytic method of examining sociality through the lens of other cognitive style elements unique to each province, specifically to the religious province. The chapter begins by comparing ritual to play, discussing similarities and distinctions as widely recognized in anthropology. Barber then focuses on Abrahamic religions, in which communication within rituals involves dialogic exchanges on a bodily level between a personal God and the religious community (the hallmark of ritual). This bodily engagement fosters a form of sociality that extends to relationships outside the ritual setting, promoting empathy and responsibility toward others. Barber highlights how the unique, non-social features of rituals (like bodily movements, symbols, and music) can deepen interpersonal relationships, even with those outside the community. He also examines how non-social features like sensory markers and ritual music create a distinct “province of meaning” that separates ritual from everyday life. He draws a comparison to Husserl’s epoché, noting that ritual symbols such as incense, music, and architecture signal a shift away from pragmatism toward a unique cognitive state that stimulates openness to divine and human interrelations. Ritual music, Barber argues, plays a critical role in shaping intersubjective experiences by synchronizing participants’ internal rhythms, which enhances collective attentiveness and empathy. Barber points out that music in the ritual realm helps effect a break from everyday life, guiding participants into a shared temporal experience distinct from typical social roles. He further explains that rituals create an environment where typical social roles and personal judgments are set aside. For instance, sensory experiences within rituals—like the sound of hymns or visual elements such as candles—help cultivate a shared consciousness, enhancing mutual openness and empathy among participants. In Barber’s words, rituals allow participants “to be touched, beneath the control of the ego” in a way that promotes “communication between interactors” through sensory cues.

Finally, Barber emphasizes how the values cultivated in ritual—humility, respect, and receptiveness—extend beyond the ritual setting, potentially shaping attitudes toward others outside the community. This quality of ritual, which Barber likens to music in its ability to cultivate “attunement to oneself and others,” prepares participants for ethical responsiveness in broader social contexts. A significant theme in this chapter is the anticipation of divine revelation, in which the ritualistic waiting fosters humility and respect. Barber suggests that this expectation can counteract forms of violence often associated with religious and cultural imperialism, as the act of waiting for revelation nurtures respect for all individuals. Additionally, Barber argues that the cognitive style of ritual, particularly through music, helps deepen the sense of resilience and responsiveness—a core theme Schutz associated with meaningful social interactions.

Humor Folklore as a “Counter-Institution”

Chapter 8 focuses on African-American folkloric humor as a response to the oppressive conditions of slavery. Barber explains how this humor, embedded within a distinct finite province of meaning, allowed enslaved individuals to confront the “imposed relevances” of slavery with resilience. Through oral folklore, conducted in a protected, informal space marked by an epoché that excluded slave owners, African-Americans cultivated a unique form of intersubjective responsiveness. Just as in the ritual province, this departure from everyday life—doubly reinforced through music and sensual ritual markers—serves to cut participants off from everyday reality and accentuates the differentiation between the ritual sphere and everyday life. In much the same way, African-American folkloric humor enacts this departure through a triple reinforcement: folkloric boundary markers, a fictional narrative structure, and the humor embedded within the narrative. This creates a protective boundary around the humor, allowing it to flourish within its well-defined province of meaning.

Barber illustrates resilience by examining specific folkloric tales, including one in which a slave humorously outwits his cruel master, symbolizing both resistance and ethical complexity. This humor is not only a mechanism of endurance but also a subtle, covert critique of the institution of slavery. The chapter highlights how such responsiveness in folklore can transition toward ethical responsibility, creating a space where resilience enables solidarity and sustains moral identity despite systemic dehumanization. Barber links this resilience to a Levinasian ethical responsibility, suggesting that humor allowed for a shared understanding and a reimagined sociality among enslaved individuals, even hinting at the ethical transformation of relationships between the oppressed and the oppressors. Humor offered a way to express indignation and create solidarity against the dehumanizing conditions they faced, with folklore acting as a “counter-institution” to the institution of slavery itself.

Phenomenological Intentionality and Looking-Glass Sociality

The conclusion provides a comprehensive synthesis of the book’s central arguments, grounded in Schutz’s phenomenology and his seminal essay “On Multiple Realities.” Barber engages with Schutz’s conceptualization of finite provinces of meaning, emphasizing their dynamic and interconnected nature, and how the non-social features of these provinces affect the social relationships within them, while addressing the relevance of this conceptualization to contemporary discussions on resilience, sociality, and ethics.

Barber highlights how finite provinces of meaning are not static domains but fluid spheres shaped by intentionality, bodily movement, spontaneity, and affect, alongside rationality and theorizing. The transitions between these provinces—such as work, play, dreaming, and religious ritual—demonstrate their interdependence and the transformative possibilities they offer, enriching human understanding through the interplay of cognitive styles and tensions of consciousness.

Central to Barber’s argument is the role of resilience in Schutz’s framework, which is grounded in phenomenological intentionality, demonstrating that imposed relevances do not causally determine our responses. He foregrounds Schutz’s concept of imposed relevances, which arise from external constraints or social interactions. These external factors are not determinative but instead invite individuals to engage in meaning-making processes, with the caveat that whatever imposed relevances impinge upon us, we are not always capable of “overcoming” them. Resilience, in this sense, emerges as a hallmark of Schutz’s phenomenology, challenging the reductionism of “vulgar pragmatism” by recognizing the depth of conscious life and its capacity to navigate constraints with creativity and adaptability.

The conclusion further explores Schutz’s idea of a “looking-glass sociality.” Barber contrasts this with Sartre’s view, in which relationships often involve objectification, reducing one person to an object of the other’s consciousness. Schutz focuses instead on intersubjective mutuality, in which individuals engage in spontaneous and reciprocal interactions that reflect a shared world of meaning. Schutz depicts interactions more in terms of mutual responsiveness. One partner interacts quickly, spontaneously, and cooperatively with another, as happens among players, musical performers, ritual participants, or folkloric humorists. Barber emphasizes that Schutz’s idea of “looking-glass sociality” is grounded in responsiveness and mutual understanding rather than domination or subordination.

As a whole, Barber’s work enriches the understanding of Schutz’s legacy by providing nuanced insights into the fluidity of finite provinces of meaning and their profound implications for human agency, resilience, and the ethical dimensions of social life.