Chapter V – Will, Action and Collective Phenomenology
3. Higher Order Personality (Collective) Willing
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action,” which are important for considering political action, which according to Arendt is the main manifestation of human will and freedom.
3. Higher Order Personality (Collective) Willing
This section is dedicated to the phenomena of willing, which is experienced by groups of people (i.e. by collective “persons”).
The concept of “collective” or “higher order” persons and the possibility of
“higher order” mental experiences such as willing and even “higher order” action (i.e.
collective action) were already briefly examined in the previous section, and it was shown that positing an inter-subjective objectivity of the mental phenomena provides grounds for considering such “higher order” mental experiences and action. This was also illustrated by the example of a group of spectators seeing a robbery scene and acting collectively after discovering a collective experience of disproving the act of the robbery and forming a collective will of preventing this act from being completed.
Once the grounds for higher order mental experience and action are established and verified, the inquiry into various kinds of the higher order willing phenomena and collective action can be made.
Before reflecting upon Arendt’s insights about such instances of collective willing and political action, and developing a theoretical conception of collective will, we may certainly use some of Edmund Husserl’s methodology. In his manuscripts on inter-subjectivity, which we find in the volume 14 of Husserliana, Husserl attributes the following concepts to certain forms of communities: ‘personality’ (199, 405),
‘subjectivity’ (404), ‘consciousness’ and ‘unity of consciousness’ (200), ‘faculties’,
‘character’, ‘conviction’ (201), ‘memory’ (205), and even something like corporality (206) – “so etwas wie Leiblichkeit”. Moreover, Husserl claims that these characteristics are not inauthentic and not a mere analogy. In other words, there lies objectivity behind the phenomena referred to by these terms.
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For the above reason the research of this section will greatly benefit from utilizing Husserl’s methodology and the conceptions of “inter-subjective objectivity”
and mental experiences of “higher order personalities”, which were discussed in the previous sections for a philosophical inquiry into the notions of collective willing and political action.
Naturally, results of this section’s research will contribute to analyzing and interpreting various political and social realities and assessing related theoretical models, which in turn may be useful for a further philosophical understanding of such notions, realities and experiences.
A theoretical framework for the experiences of collective willing can now be formed and related to the framework of willing experience of an individual human Ego, which was developed in the previous chapters.
Essentially, when a number of people have some internal experience, which is similar for all of them and is directed to the same object or to similar objects, then these people through communication may discover and become conscious of this internal experience and may initiate a collective activity and make collective volitions, which would be governed by the principles similar to the principles of an individual willing ego.
This happens due to the fact that a “higher order” personality is formed by these people, and this “person” is able to have a will and to exercise this collective will through collective action.
The detailed mechanism of this “collective will” and its difference from individual will and action are to be considered after we look once again into Arendt’s contribution to the theoretical relationship between will and political action.
4. Arendt’s Contribution
This research will be greatly assisted by the intuitions of Hannah Arendt regarding politics and social phenomena, which was already reviewed in Chapter II, which was dedicated to Arendt’s thought on willing and action. It is necessary to recall
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some of Arendt’s ideas on action in the public realm for the purposes of this chapter’s research.
In The Human Condition Arendt reflects upon the phenomena and principles pertaining to the society as a whole. For instance, she indicates that the “revelatory quality of speech and action comes to the fore where people are with others and neither for nor against them – that is, in sheer human togetherness.”159 Arendt bases all of her analysis of social issues of the lack of action on the premise that they pertain to the whole of society.
The issue of collective willing is closely related to Arendt’s analysis of “action”
in the realm of politics. From previous chapters we could see that for Arendt human will is the “spring of action”, it gives human being an ability to begin something new, something which breaks the laws of necessity pertaining to causality. In her reflection on the nature of “action”, which is important for the whole of society, Arendt says the following:
Because they are initium, newcomers and beginners by virtue of birth, men take initiative, are prompted to action. …(“that there be a beginning, man was created before whom there was nobody”), said Augustine in his political philosophy. This beginning is not the same as the beginning of the world; it is not the beginning of something but of somebody, who is a beginner himself.160
For Arendt the notion of the “new beginning” is an extremely important notion, especially for her theory of will and action. She finds the roots of this notion in the Christian conception of God the Creator, Who created everything out of nothing (ex nihilo).
She uses St. Augustine’s thought about this creation and the way St.
Augustine relates God’s creative power of creating the world to the notion of the
159 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959. P. 160.
160 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. P. 177.
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creation of human being. She connects the notion of a person, who is “a new beginning” to the notion of the will, which makes people “beginners.” She extends St.
Augustine’s notion of the “new beginning” or “initium” to all human beings, while St.
Augustine talked only about Adam. She may be correct in doing so, since St.
Augustine sometimes seems to extend this notion of “initium” to his political and philosophical discourse, which implied that all men partake in the main qualities of Adam, and consequently one may claim that for St. Augustine the notion of the “new beginning” may apply to all human beings.
Arendt adds the following:
With the creation of man, the principle of beginning came into the world itself, which, of course, is only another way of saying that the principle of freedom was created when man was created but not before.161
Here Arendt explicitly connects the “creation of man”, “principle of beginning”
and the “principle of freedom.” To some extent this is Arendt’s speculation, and no argumentation is provided to support this claim. However, there are some important insights here, which may prove to be valid.
It is the principle of the freedom of the will which Arendt speaks about here, not the political freedom, despite the interrelationship between the two. Once a man is created and represents a new beginning by himself, then whatever men does has a relationship to this beginning. However, this does not mean that everything, which is done by men, is “a new beginning.” There is a jump here from “man being a new beginning” to “men beginning something new due to the freedom, which he has.” This jump is not supported through argumentation or phenomenological grounding, but rather it is base on the theological notion of “man being created into the Image of God.” This theological proposition explains why “freedom” and “new beginners” enter the world, when a man is created.
161 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959. P. 157.
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Arendt often explicitly indicates that there is a direct connection between willing and action, that the “will” is the “mental organ for action.” However, it was already discussed earlier above, that for Arendt, the “will” is split into two conflicting wills (the
“will” and the “nill/counter-will”). This prompts a question about action: how do the two conflicting wills result in one action? Arendt understands that there is a difficulty, and expresses it in the following way:
The will is supposed to move us into acting, and for this purpose we must emphatically be one. In other words, a will divided against itself is less adequate for the task of acting, whereas a mind divided within itself is more adequate for the task of deliberation. If that is the way the will is, what good can the will do?
And yet without willing, how could I ever be moved to act?162
Arendt herself does not supply a direct answer, however, she indicates that there must be one and she provides some clues to resolving this difficulty. It is logical to ask whether action can be produced by “the winner” in this struggle between two wills, which are opposed to one another? Arendt brings in the notion of “selflessness,” which for her is a condition of doing good: “The ultimate criterion for positively doing good…
we found to be selflessness, the loosing of interest in yourself.”163 In other words, once one looses interest in himself (i.e. interest in doing something for the purpose of benefitting self), one is able to do good deeds. This implies that our will to do good (to others) overcomes the counter-will, which is directed towards doing something for our own benefit.
In reality there may be more that two conflicting wills, each pulling in its own direction and refusing to obey to other “counter-wills.” We can claim that in such a case of conflicting wills it is the strongest will, which is likely to overcome other “wills,” and a person will follow this strongest will in his actions.
162 Arendt, Hannah. Responsibility and Judgment. P. 122.
163 Arendt, Hannah. Responsibility and Judgment. P. 123.
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We can now return to the issues of human action in the public realm. In her subsequent reflection on the human condition Arendt often utilizes the concepts of
“action” and “freedom” pertaining to the whole of human society, a society, which may have “togetherness” (but may not have it in reality, at least not in the full sense).
For Arendt willing is the mental faculty, which is responsible for action. Many scholars indicate that it is essential to understand Arendt’s conception of the will in order to understand her ideas about political action. Jacobitti claims the following with respect to Arendt’s political thought:
…the will plays a predominant role as the faculty by which free action is possible.
As the concept of free action is absolutely central to all of Arendt's political thought, her views on the will must be seriously examined by anyone who would understand her work or build upon it.164
It is necessary to consider closer this relationship, which according to Arendt exists between willing and action. The key to the relationship between the willing and action is likely to lie in the conception of “freedom”. Willing is theoretically related to action, since action must arise from some mental activity. For action to be free, the mental activity, which produces it, should also be free.
Arendt indicates that willing precedes every particular free act. The will itself ceases once a person acts upon the particular volition supplied by his will. Arendt expresses this in the following way:
Every volition, although a mental activity, relates to the world of appearances in which its project is to be realized; in flagrant contrast to thinking, no willing is ever done for its own sake… Every volition not only concerns particulars but –
164 Jacobitti, Suzanne. Hannah Arendt and the Will. Political Theory, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Feb., 1988), P. 53.
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and this is of great importance – looks forward to its own end, when willing-something will have changed into doing it.165
In this passage Arendt indicates that there is a direct relationship between volitions and the world of appearances. Volition is a particular imperative of the will, it is a command or a striving to achieve some end. Thus, a volition is directed towards some act, which is to happen in the world.
We may extend this notion and say that a volition may be directed to actively and freely producing any change external or internal (with respect to the willing subject), moreover, it may also be directed to change or influence something belonging to the past and to the present (not only to the future).
From the above passage one may also see that for Arendt willing is concerned only with things that may be influenced or changed by the willing subject. According to Arendt, something, which is outside the scope of actual or feasible possibilities of the willing subject, may not become an object of willing of this subject. However, earlier in this research paper we have already extended the will’s scope to things, which lie outside the direct influence of the subject, who is nevertheless willing for some changes to take place.
Let us consider what else Arendt says about the relationship between will and action. It should be noted that there is a close relationship between a free act and
“action” in Arendt’s thought. By the term “action” Arendt denotes political action, i.e.
action, which is freely acted “unto the web of relationships of political actors,” all of whom play a role in producing results of this action.
Arendt says that a person, who acts “is not his own master, not… autonomous;
he must conduct himself in accordance with what spectators expect of him.”166 This means that “spectators” exert some influence upon the acting individual. Arendt does not provide a sufficient explanation of this statement and its implications, moreover, as we
165 Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Willing. Pp. 36-37.
166 Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Willing. P. 94.
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have already discussed in Chapter II, this statement makes some people claim that Arendt is incoherent in her thought. However, now we may attempt to provide a logical explanation of Arendt’s statement and indicate its implications for her theory of political action.
We may agree with Arendt, that an acting person may indeed not be “his own master,” when he acts in front of “spectators” and he even “must conduct himself in accordance with what spectators expect of him.” 167 This may be explained with the notion of “higher order personality” of political actors. When someone is acting in a public realm, he feels that he belongs to this “higher order personality,” this
“personality” incorporates other actors and/or spectators, each of whom have their own roles and wills, however, all of them participate in some “action” of a person, as long as this action is acted “into” this public realm. In other words, an acting individual does not lose his own freedom when he acts, moreover, his freedom is actualized through this action. However, his freedom has to take into account other spectators and actors, who are also present in this public realm. These other actors do not undermine individual’s personal freedom of the will, rather, they create a public realm, which exerts some influence on the personal freedom and also gives to this freedom the possibility of being actualized in the world of appearances.
Above paragraph is very loaded, but this is necessary if we want to make sense of what Arendt is saying, and want to incorporate her thought into our theoretical modeling of will and the manifestation of will’s freedom through action in the public realm, which involves groups of people incorporated into “higher order personalities”.
Arendt’s notion of the self helps us integrate her notion of the autonomous will and the notion of a free acting self. With respect to the faculties of the mind and the self Arendt says that “it is always the same mind that thinks and wills, as it is the same self that unites body, soul and mind.”168 The self unites the body, which performs an action, and the mind, which wills and issues commands to the body. There is no split between
167 Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Willing. P. 94.
168 Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Willing. P. 4.
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the body, which is an organ of free action and the life of the mind, which has the autonomous will ordering free commands to the self.
In Chapter II we have already demonstrated that Arendt’s notion of the “self” or an “enduring I” is compatible with her notion of the “spontaneity of the will.” There is no need to repeat our argumentation again. An “enduring I” possesses a spontaneity of the will, which does not prevent this “I” to be “enduring.” The “enduring I” does not totally determine and condition our choices and actions, in some sense we are free of the
“enduring I.” However, even though we have a freedom from this “enduring I,” we are not deprived of it. This was also discussed and demonstrated in our discussion on human
“character,” and its relationship to the freedom of the will.
Arendt indicates that action is a basic ability of an individual, who through action may influence the world and create something new. Action may break any causal chains and influence of external factors. This ability is directly related to Arendt’s conception of the will, which enables one to “begin a new series of events in time,” and create a
“new beginning in the world.”
In arguing for the contingency of any action Arendt says:
…Kant had clearly in mind the “power of spontaneously beginning” and therefore was concerned about a possible reconciliation of a “new series of acts and states” with the time continuum that this “new series” interrupts: the traditional solution of the problem even at that date would still have been the Aristotelian distinction between potentiality and actuality, as saving the unity of the time concept by assuming that the “new series” was potentially contained in the “preceding series.” But the insufficiency of the Aristotelian explanation is evident: Can anybody seriously maintain that the symphony produced by a composer was “possible before it was actual”?169
169 Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Willing. P. 30.
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In this passage Arendt expresses not only a possibility of freedom, but also a connection between the free will and action. Here she brings in the example of creating a symphony by a composer, which is a free action, even though it is not a political action.
According to Arendt, the will has a conception of “freedom” implicit in it, and this implies “contingency” of actions, which result in a “new series” in the world, these series are “new,” since they did not have any potentiality prior to their coming to existence.
Arendt also expresses the relationship between action and freedom of human willing
Arendt also expresses the relationship between action and freedom of human willing