Arendt, Plato, and Natality

One of the most intriguing parts of Arendt's chapter on action in The Human Condition is her critique of Plato and Aristotle's conception of politics as the craft of ruling. The belief that "every political community consists of those who rule and those who are ruled," Arendt argues, "rests on a suspicion of action rather than on a contempt for men, and arose from the earnest desire to find a substitute for action rather than from any irresponsible or tyrannical power" (p. 222). Action is associated with the human condition of plurality, and acknowledging this plurality also means acknowledging that action in politics will be unpredictable (p. 220). To the man who wants to construct a stable constitution - especially one that is grounded not in plurality but rather in the philosopher's conception of the eternal, unchanging good - the unpredictability of action threatens the "stability, security, and productivity" of the city (p. 222).

As we have also seen, Arendt's idea of plurality is deeply tied to her conception of natality: by being "born" into the world, newcomers have the ability to "[begin] something anew" (p. 9). Natality, however, pertains not simply to newcomers, but to all men who act in the public realm, since "action [...] is the actualization of the human condition of natality" (p. 178).

We can discuss further in seminar what we make of Arendt's critique of Plato and Aristotle's emphasis on rule and its relation to the public realm, but I think it is worth noting that, even in his Republic, Plato seems to recognize the significance that natality holds for the project of creating the perfectly just city in speech. Natality, he realizes, precisely because it introduces unpredictable newcomers into the world, will ruin the chances of preserving the perfect constitution of the city ruled by the philosopher-kings.

Consider the following excerpt from Book VIII of the Republic, in which Socrates discusses the corruption of the city into timocracy (rule by the spirited), oligarchy (rule by the few), democracy (rule by the many), and finally tyranny (rule by a single unjust man). Observe how Socrates describes to Glaucon, his interlocutor, the initial undoings of the city [emphasis added]:

[Socrates]: First, then [...] let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honor) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved.

[Glaucon]: Very true.

[Socrates]: In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?

[Glaucon]: How would they address us?

[Socrates]: After this manner: -- A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution: -- In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. [...] For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the [...] different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron [races] will be mingled with silver [races], and brass [races] with gold [races], and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.

Now, Arendt and Plato don't seem to be talking in exactly the same terms, but it does seem that in Socrates' thought experiment, the corruption of the polity arises from the inability of the philosophers to predict how good or excellent the offspring will be.


Could we interpret this as an implicit (yet underdeveloped) recognition of natality as part of the human condition - something which even the philosophers acknowledge?