Of Marx's Theory Of Arendt's Public Domain Concepts And Their Relevant Criticism

Widely recognized as one of the most original and influential political thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt attracted much attention of many scholars.Her unique and original insights constituted a rich resource of the research on the topic of public realm, and also provided a unique perspective and more instructive for our modern criticism. This article will focus on Arendt’s public realm conception and its related criticism on Marx.This paper is divided into four parts. The first part will introduce the background of the conception of public realm in reality and in theory. According to the author, the starting-point of Hannah Arendt’s approach to the theory of the public realm is her reflection upon reality. As a Jew and intellectual, her special experience leads her to the origins of totalitarianism, and ultimately points to the decline of the public realm. At the same time, the ancient Greek city-state political experience, which owns a clear distinction between public and private realm, provides a theoretical prototype of Arendt’s conception of the public realm. Heidegger’s criticism of traditional metaphysics provides a path of existential analysis for Arendt’s analysis of the human basic condition and actions as a human activity. The second part will make a comprehensive analysis of the basic conception of Arendt’s public realm. This conception is on the basis of the private life and political life of the Greek city-states, and the labor-the family’s economic production activity is strictly limited to the private realm, relating to natural and inevitability. Meanwhile the basic condition of work constitutes a public realm an outside world, so the human engage in political activities in the public realm on the basis of the plurality of human condition by speech and action. Invasion of the private realm of the public realm declared total victory of the labor of animals and set economic statistics as the universal principle. Arendt identifies the social with all those activities formerly restricted to the private sphere of the household and having to do with the necessities of life.Thus, the distinction between the boundaries of public and private realm disappeared. The private realm will no longer exist when the public realm fade away. Arendt expanded her criticism of modernity through the criticism of the social realm. Arendt think modern crisis is rooted in the decline of the public domain. The third part will discuss the criticism of Marx about public realm. By analyzing two issues---"The End of the Western political tradition upside down" and "communism fiction", we can see Arendt’s criticism of Marx lies in the conception of "labor".The fourth part will discuss the positive significance and limitations of the conception of Arendt’s public realm in detail. Arendt’s public realm conception is the cornerstone of her own political philosophy theory, and full of practical significance. At the same time, the conception of public realm has also brought a lot of controversy, such as Arendt make a clear answer to none of those questions:the political internal opposing factors, the social realm and in the public realm, and redraw the boundaries of the private sphere the possibility and nature of the relationship between. Through the statements of Marxist labor and alienation, we can say that Arendt’s misunderstanding and criticism of Marx is built on top of the restrictions on labor. This paper argues that Arendt’s concept of public realm to give a perspective for us to criticize modern society. In her view, the decline of the problems of modern society can be attributed to modern political issues, and the root of political and cultural crisis is the decline of public realm. Despite the lack of her criticism of Marx, it is also thought-provoking for leading us to the further study of the contemporary significance of Marxism. However, if the critical problems of modern society can all be attributed to modern political issues, it is still a question worthy of further reflection and inquiry.