Truth,Meaning And Friendship

Arendt used the term “vita activa” to designate three fundamental human activities,namely,labor,work and action.And she made a distinction between them.Action,dedicated to the creation and maintenance of the political body,is the core theme of his life's thoughts.In Arendt's view,action,usually accompanied by speech and carried out by speech,was the main form of political activity,which generated its inner meaning in its own progress.It was a kind of self-fulfilling activity.Action had the ability to open,was a kind of free experience,which was rooted in the fact of human plurality.However,the traditional philosophers tended to ignore this fact.They understood political activities based on the wordless rational truth,and tried to rule politics by(philosophical)truth.They regarded action as a means to pursue external ends(contemplative life),so that made the internal meaning of action and the free experience of politics be obscured.Thus,traditionally,there was a conflict and tension between truth and the meaning of action.But such a conflict between them was not inevitable.In Socrates,the relationship between truth and meaning was consistent in politics.Arendt saw that Socrates understood the truth based on the public conversation between friends.For him,the truth was generated in the multiple opinions which presented by friends in their free conversation,and each sincere opinion was a manifestation of the world,containing an element of truth,which had an intrinsic meaning in itself.Socratic political experience was the experience of friendship,in which truth and the meaning of action were in a consistent relationship.However,the death of Socrates made Plato doubt and distrust the opinions and the validity of persuasion.In his political philosophy,he tried to rule the multiple opinions and the political life of the polis by the rational truth,in order to make the action controllable and get rid of the trouble brought by it.Plato started the tradition of western political thought.After him,many philosophers followed in his footsteps,regarding action as a means.They were thinking about political life based on rational truth(the relationship between ruling and being ruled).Arendt considered that such understanding of action was essentially based on the experience of fabrication.In this way of understanding,the inherent dignity of politics was destroyed and the meaning of action itself was obscured.Therefore,the conflict between truth and the meaning of action ran through the whole political ideological tradition.Arendt saw that,in consistent with the intentional characteristics of the rational truth,traditional political philosophy tended to pursue a certain unity and certainty in the political world,which was actually closely related to the metaphysical way of thinking.The metaphysics always tried to seek the existence of complicated appearances as their common source,and ignored the importance of appearance.Arendt believed that this was actually a misunderstanding of appearance.In human affairs,being and appearance were identical.For her,the way of political understanding based on traditional truth was incompatible with the characteristics of politics itself.The political field was defined by relativity,which was incompatible with absolute truth.What can be compatible with politics was a kind of dialogic truth,which was based on men's public communication,and it was both philosophical and political.Instead of the traditional political philosophy attaching great importance to the truth,Arendt emphasized the significance in politics.In her view,there was a clear distinction between truth and meaning,which corresponded to the distinction between understanding and reason,science and philosophy.Science seeks(cognitive)truth,while philosophy seeks meaning.However,this distinction was often confused by traditional philosophers,who try to pursue the truth in philosophy.Traditionally,the truth had the characteristic of unitary.Different from this,meaning had diversity.In political action,diverse opinions gave rise to diverse meanings,and the meaning of action was manifested in understanding and narration.The same event would have different meanings in different understandings.Therefore,the meaning of action inherently had diversity.Arendt saw that the diversity of action meaning corresponded to and rooted in the fact of human plurality.Therefore,from truth turning to meaning,its essence was a new understanding and discovery of human and politics.It turned from the naturalistic attitude to see the intrinsic value and significance of each individual,and to understand politics from the perspective of the relationship between men.It revealed the freedom experience of politics and restored the dignity of politics itself.This actually contained Arendt's own unique political philosophy,which was a kind of political phenomenology.It tried to suspend metaphysical thought and naturalistic attitude,so as to present political experience in itself.Friendship was the core concept of her political philosophy.The political experience of friendship rested with the free communication of equal friends in the public space.It had nothing to do with self-interest and was free from the mean-end category.Action had its intrinsic meaning in its own progress.Friendship was the basis for Arendt to understand the truth and the meaning of action.For her,the truth was constantly generated in men's public communication and had diversity.In the politics of friendship,politics itself was philosophical,which generated various dialogical truths,while philosophy itself was political,which developed itself in people's public communication.In Arendt's view,the essence of friendship rested with conversation,and understanding the truth contained in the opinions of others in the sincere conversation of friends was the political element of friendship.Political friendship was the fellowship existed between friends,and it was not brotherhood.It was the solidarity between men,which was fundamentally different from fraternity.The latter was based on compassion.Arendt's thought presented a kind of political concept of friendship.In her opinion,the corresponding political system of the politics of friendship was the republic system,its form of government was the council system,and what it emphasized was the construction of public space and citizens' participation in politics.In it,the truth and the meaning of action returned to the original consistent relationship.For Arendt,the basis of the politics of friendship lied in men's love and responsibility for the world,and politics is more about the world than about people.Nevertheless,through the interpretation of her thoughts,we can see that,by virtue of metaphor,political action directed and showed the love for people.