Hannah Arendt and the Fragility of Human Dignity

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Professor John Douglas Macready offers a post-foundational account of human dignity by way of a reconstructive reading of Hannah Arendt. He argues that Arendts experience of political violence and genocide in the twentieth century, as well as her experience as a stateless person, led her to rethink human dignity as an intersubjective event of political experience. By tracing the contours of Arendts thoughts on human dignity, Professor Macready offers convincing evidence that Arendt was engaged in retrieving the political experience that gave rise to the concept of human dignity in order to move beyond the traditional accounts of human dignity that relied principally on the status and stature of human beings. This allowed Arendt to retrofit the concept for a new political landscape and reconceive human dignity in terms of stancehow human beings stand in relationship to one another. Professor Macready elucidates Arendts latent political ontology as a resource for developing strictly political account of human dignity hat he calls conditional dignitythe view that human dignity is dependent on political action, namely, the preservation and expression of dignity by the person, and/or the recognition by the political community. He argues that it is precisely this right to have a place in the worldthe right to belong to a political community and never to be reduced to the status of stateless animalitythat indicates the political meaning of human dignity in Arendts political philosophy.

Reviews

John Douglas Macready's new book is [sic] timely and welcome. It is a clear and thought- provoking exploration of key aspects of Arendt's thought, explaining some of her central concepts and arguments, and stating and discussing an Arendtian conception of human dignity . . . Macready's arguments deserve repeated consideration and promotion.-- "Process North"

Author Bio

John Douglas Macready is professor of philosophy at Collin College.