Ricoeur on Arendt

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Action, torynd

History:OnRe-reading heHumanCondition*BY PAUL RICOEUR

The distinction etween abor, work and action - which s thecornerstone f Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition 1958)- hasusuallybeen examined nd criticized ia the disciplines f sociologyand political cience.Questionshave been raised s to the ccuracy ndcoherence f her riteria, nd above all, as to whether r not they wereconsistent ith he

principal resuppositionsf her ther

major works,namely heOrigins f Totalitarianism1951)and On Revolution 1963).I should ike o undertake n examination f the entral oncepts roma different oint f view, ne closer ophilosophical nthropology hanto political cience.For this purpose have chosen s a leading hreadthe onnection etween ction, tory nd history hich ppears n thesection of The Human Condition devoted to action and which sexpanded n The Modern Concept of History 1958),reprinted nBetween ast and Future 1961). Byphilosophical nthropology meanan inquiry imed at identifying he most enduring eatures f the

temporal ondition f man-

those which re the east vulnerable othe vicissitudes f the modern ge.I am aware of the danger f an analysiswhich tresseswhat s basic

to TheHuman Condition ather han the critique f modernity hichis usually considered o be Hannah Arendt's main contribution omodern hought. ut the very omposition f The Human Conditionwarrants hiskind f approach. n spite f her repeated ncursions ntothe problem f modernity n her fivefirst hapters, he felt ompelledto devote sixth istinct hapter o The VitaActiva and the ModernAge (pp. 248 ff.). The distinction etween Vita Contemplativa nd

♦Unless therwise ndicated, uotations n this ext re taken from Hannah Arendt, heHuman Condition Chicago: University f Chicago Press, 1958).

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Action, Story nd History 61the Vita Activa s the undeveloped resupposition f the book. It servesto govern he whole of the analysis from above, bolstered by thedistinction etween The Public and the Private Realm (which sintroduced efore he three main categories f Vita Activa) and theordering f these three ategories f labor, work and action. Thesecategories re not categories n the Kantian sense, i.e. a-historicalstructures f the mind. They are themselves historical tructures.Nevertheless,hroughout heirmanifold ermutations hey etain kind

of flexible dentity hich llows us to recognize hem s componentsof the human condition which deserve to be described under suchnames. If this were not the case, the ceaseless references o Homer,Plato, Aristotle, heRomans nd the Medieval hinkers ould amountto, at best, a kind of nostalgia, and at worst, to the repetition funjustified nachronisms. he claimunderlying uchborrowings s thatmodernity tself, n spite of its pretension o radical newness, an stillbe understood ith he helpof suchconcepts spoiesis, praxis, nimallaborans, homof ber, vita activa, and so on. It is precisely n orderto vindicate he strategy f the author, ombining ncient ategorieswith novel situations, hat I deliberately hoose to disentangle hetemporal raits haracteristic f the ategories f abor, work nd actionfrom hemore controversial nd polemical ssessment f the state ofmodernman. This preliminary nalysiswill ntroducemy main topic,namely hetransition rom ction to story nd from tory o history.What will nterest me in this second stage of my nquiry s less thecontribution f Hannah Arendt o the pistemology f historiographythan he mplification f the description f human ime mplicit n thefirst tage of our inquiry evoted to the temporal features f labor,work nd action.

/. The Temporal Features of Labor, Work nd Action

It's worth ur while o underscore hepermanent eatures f thesethree categories in order to understand not only the radicaltransformation hey undergo but also the book's polemical stanceconcerning heir modern reordering. he crucial ssue is: how couldthe author uestion on the one hand the underestimation f the vitapractica n the platonic nd neoplatonic radition nd in the early ndmedieval tages f Christianity or he ake of vita ontemplativa, ndon the other hand, the overestimation f the category f labor afterAdam Smith and Marx, if the hierarchy nd balance between vita







62 PAUL RICOEUR

contemplativa nd vita ctiva nd within ita ctiva tself ad not omenormative alue, ruled by some enduring deological constitution?1

My contention s that this normative nd teleological rdering anbe vindicated n the most convincing way if the categories underconsideration re dealt with s specific esponses ospecific uestionsraised y he emporal ondition f *'mortal' beings.We are all familiarwith hedefinition f labor as an activity ubmitted o vital necessitiesand to the care for ndividual nd species urvival;with hedefinitionof work s the fabrication f a man-madeworld f artifacts; nd withthe definition f action s the rreducible ondition f politics.Mytaskwill be to disentangle he permanent emporal features ertaining oeach of these tagesof vita practica. As I just suggested, ll of themhave to do with man's mortality. The question f time s raised, orrather ime s raised s a question, ecauseman s the onlybeingwhichknows hat t s mortal, because man alone thinks nd thinks whatiseternal.Hannah Arendt ever eparted rom his basic worldviewwhich s both presocratic nd hebraic that ternity s what wethink,but that t is as mortals that we think t. In this sense, t is vitacontemplativa hich llows vita ctiva o understand tself nd to reflectupon its own temporal ondition.2 his gap between man's mortalcondition and the thinking f eternity s the most fundamentalpresupposition f the temporal raits hat we shall now consider. Allof them re, in their wn ways, attempts o confer mmortality ponperishing hings. n this regard, he distinction etween ternity ndimmortality s fundamental. t is stated very early n The HumanCondition Eternity s what s lacking o mortals, but to the extentthat we think, we think ternity. We might ven say that to think sto think

ternity.) mmortality s what we attempt o confer uponourselves n order to endure our mortal condition. The politicalenterprise, n this respect, s the highest ttempt o immortalizeourselves. rom his ttempt prings oth he greatness nd the llusionof the wholehuman nterprise. annah Arendt, s one who thinks he

1 This claim s asserted n the following erms: he three ctivities onstitutive f vitaactiva are fundamental ecause ach corresponds o one of the basicconditions nderwhich ife on earth has been given to man.*'

2 This point s nowhere mphasized n The Human Condition nd recognized nly nHannah Arendt's unfinished ork, TheLife of the Mind, published osthumouslyand edited by Mary McCarthy 1978).This shortcoming f The Human Conditionisacknowledged y the uthor n her ontribution o the Toronto Conference evotedto The Work of Hannah Arendt. See Hannah Arendt: TheRecovery f the PublicWorld 1972), ed. MelvynA. Hill, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1979, p. 305.







Action, Story nd History 63political tatus of man without eing herself political ctor exceptby accident and by necessity), onsistently efused o despise thisgreatness n spite f ts vanity or to conceal this llusion or he akeof ts greatness. his unequivocal quivocity ertains othe relationshipbetween vita contemplativa nd vita activa.

Let us now proceed stage by stage.The activity alled labor draws ts temporal haracterization rom

the transitory ature f things roduced for the sake of subsistance.

Labor remains odayan activity ubmitted o vital necessities, .e. tothe ceaseless renewal f life. This is why Locke was right o say thatall those good things which re really useful o the ife of man,to the necessity f subsisting, re generally f short uration, uchas - if they re not consumed by use - will decay and perish bythemselves. Hannah Arendt grees: the least durable of tangiblethings re those needed for the life process itself. Absence ofdurability, ccordingly, haracterizes he evel f animal abor ns. Thisapparent aradox must be correctly nderstood n order o make senseof the vehement ttack directed gainst modern eductions f work olabor. Work, as we shall see, constitutes he realm of durability orreasonswe shall spellout later. The characterization f labor as thatwhich lacks durability ooks paradoxical when we consider theaccumulation f tools and instruments, he onstitution f capital, ndthe abundance of commodities nd goods in advanced industrialsocieties at least as long as the problem f the exhaustion f non-renewable energies and resources has not emerged as a crucialpredicament or he wholeeconomic ommunity. or Hannah Arendtall these chievements esulting rom he iberation f abor, which tself

preceedsthe

politicalliberation of laborers, tend to conceal the

inescapable act hat ife has to be unceasingly ntertained nd renewed,and that aborexhausts tself n the reproduction f a perpetually yinglife, s Marxclearly xplained n TheGerman deology. Therefore, eshouldnot et urselves e deceived y hephenomenon f accumulationproper omodern roduction, ut keep as a guideline hroughout uranalyses he ceaseless destruction f goods linked o consumption. tis the consumability f the products f labor which gives them heirtransient ature. Under his ondition, t s no paradox to say that itis ... the mark of all laboring that it leaves nothing behind. To

consume s to exhaust. Labor, accordingly, nderscores nd reinforcesthe devouring character of life itself. But, if deceived by theaccumulation f capital and the abundance of the products f labor,







64 PAUL RICOEURwe project upon labor the permanence, tability nd durabilitycharacteristic f work, we become blivious o the phemeral atureephemeral n the original ense of what lasts only one day - of adevouring onsumption. nly the ubstitution f the durability f theproducts f work or heperishability f the products f aborvindicatesHannah Arendt's major attack gainst modernity: we have changedwork nto aboring, she repeatedly nsists. Labor's products re tobe consumed. The products f work are to be used. The difference

between onsumption nd use has a basically emporal onnotation.It concerns he difference etween passing and enduring, etweenchange and duration.

The analysis f labor has already ompelledus to anticipate hat ofwork. The principal spect of work, from temporal oint of view,isdurability. urability haracterizes he ssence f human artifice,i.e. objectsused but not consumed.The whole of thesework products,althoughman-made, onstitutes world, not a nature which s simplythematrix f mortal ife.Theworld, ccordingly, s the whole f durableobjects which resist he erosion of time: the world, the man-madehomeerected n earth nd made of the material which arthly aturedelivers nto human hands, consistsnot of things hat are consumedbut of things hat re used. The products f abordon't becomemoredurable hanks o abundance; n the other hand, the products f work,if dealtwith s products f abor, become ransformed nto onsumablegoodsand brought ackto the futility f ife: Without being t homein the midst f thingswhosedurability makes them fit for use and forerecting world whose very permanence tands n direct ontrast olife, this ife would never be human. Hume was well aware of the

futilityf a life which does not fix r realize tself n

any permanentsubject which endures fter its] abour is past (quoted in HumanCondition, p. 135).

A new paradox riseshere:destruction, he uthor ays, s incidentalto use, but t s nherent oconsumption. he paradox, t seems, s thathouses, emples, aintings, nd poems re man-made o the xtent hatlabor produces, reserves nd repairs hem.Besidesthe fact hat heirexistence elies n the endurance f matter stone, canvas, printedtexts it s through hemediation f tools and instruments hat uchworks re made durable. But here oo, the paradox may be dismissed

if we look more carefully t the temporal eatures ot of productionbut of consumption nd use, .e. of the ways nwhichwe relate urselves







Action, Story nd History 65to labor and work products. The function f the human rtifice, aysHannah Arendt, s to offer mortals dwelling lace more permanentand more stable than themselves. We cannot help thinking ere ofHeidegger's nalysis f the act of dwelling. t is this ct which drawsthe inebetween onsuming nd using: The man-madeworld f things,the human rtifice rected y homofaber, becomes home for mortalman, whose stability will endure and outlast the ever-changingmovement f their ives and actions, only nsomuch s it transcends

both he heer functionalism f things roduced for onsumption ndthe sheer utility f objects produced for use. (Use, in this lastquotation, s brought ack to the side of consumption, y referenceto the utilitarian radition f our culture whose ntention s preciselyto cancel he distinction etween se and consumption.) t's onlywhenthis distinction s preserved hat mortality tself reaches its tragicmeaning: o be born s to gain access to a world of durability nsteadof merely o come nto the midst f the deathless epetition f nature;and to die is to recede, to pass out of a durable world. t's withinhumanizedworld hat man s born nd dies. For the ame reason, thespan of time between irth nd death deserves o be called Biso andno longer Zõê. Life, then, s full of events which ultimately an betold as a story, stablish biography.

This last remark lready nticipates he category f action and itscloselink, hanks o speech, with a story with nough coherence obe told. Actually, he transition etween work nd action s securedby henotion f remembrance, onsidered s a structure f work tself.Works s such re the documents nd the monuments f the past. Theywitness o the difference etween ime s duration nd time s passage.If we

keepin mind this

polaritybetween duration and

passage,regardless f the social or cultural changes which tend to blur thedifferences etweenwork nd labor, the reference o time s passageremains he mark of labor and the reference o time s duration, hatof work.

We move nowto the ategory f action. ts major riterion, ccordingto Hannah Arendt, s the disclosure f who. Action, connected withspeech, evealsman as an agent, .e. the one who begins nd rules theGreek term rk hein meaning both), the one who initiates hanges ntheworld.A first mphasis alls n the who, .e., the responsible ubject.

ButHannahArendt s too Aristotelian oget rapped nan individualismor a subjectivismwhich would make her turn her back on political







66 PAUL RICOEUR

philosophy. nter omines sse s the motto f the political nd speakinganimal.That s why second tress s aid on the erm isclosurewhichwillbring orth ome newtemporal onsiderations. he disclosure fwho mplies hat man appears, s seen and heard by others. Now, thenotion f a space of appearance required y that f disclosure mpliesin turn he constitution f a public realm contrasting ith privaterealm. This notion s so important hat t is introduced ery arly nThe Human Condition, ong before he category f action and even

before hose f abor and work. But the notion becomes perative nlywhen the explication of the concept of disclosure leads to theconsideration f the web of human relationships n which eachhuman ife isplays isor her wn story. All these erms verlap:publicrealm, pace of appearance, web of human relationships, isclosureof who. Altogether heymake up the condition f political ife.

If we read backwards hesequence abor, work, ction, t appearsthat hevery istinction etween abor and work s preserved y thedistinction etween he economic/social nd the political sphere ofaction. n spite of Marx, Arendt nsists hat conomy emains inkedto the oikia, .e. the household, nd in that enseto the private ealm.Thegenuine common, publicrealm s the political ealm.Economy,ultimately, remains a kind of collective housekeeping. Anyoverestimation f the economic or social life at the expenseof thepolitical ne amounts o substituting ocial behaviors or ction, andconsequently o abolishing he distinction etween hepublicand theprivate ealm, rivate ife aking efuge n privacy nd intimacy. inallythe who which ction discloses s the citizen s distinct rom helaborer nd even from he fabricator f man-made rtifacts. When

politicss absorbed by social engineering, an, the bearer of action,

man, the citizen, s absorbed by the aborer-consumer.Once more, the polemical tance of The Human Condition has to

be brought ack to the underlying hilosophical nthropology. ndoncemore t s to the emporal onstitution f the hierarchy f activitiesthat we are directed ythis philosophical nthropology. ut, trangelyenough, we have not yet spoken of time but only of space. All theprevious xpressions: ublic ealm, paceof appearance,web of humanrelationships, and even disclosure, have a prevailing spatialconnotation.3 t is at that point hatwemust ntroduce he onnection

3 The disclosure f who requires the shining rightness e once calledglory ndwhich s possibleonly n the public realm. (p. 180)







Action, Story nd History 67between ction and story, which s the turning oint for our wholeinquiry.4

II

The connection etween ction nd story s one of the most trikingthemes f the whole treatise n The Human Condition. This link sa very ubtle ne. Hannah Arendt oes not want to say that ny ife-

spanconstitutes story s such, nor ven hat he disclosure f the whois by tself story. t is only ointly hat hedisclosure f the who andthe web of human relationships ngenders process from which heunique ife tory f any newcomermay emerge. Why ink n this waythe disclosure f the who and the webof human elationships?n orderto give n account of the opaquenessof any ife-story or ts hero.The life-story roceeds s a compromise rom he encounter etweenthe vents nitiated y man as the agent of action and the nterplay fcircumstances nducedby the web of human relationships. he resultis a story n which everyone s the hero without being the author:nobody s the author or the producer f his own life-story. n other

words, he stories, he results f action and speech, reveal n agent,but this gent s not an author or producer. omebody began it andis its subject n the twofold ense of the word, namely, ts actor andsufferer, ut nobody s its uthor. Hannah Arendt epeatedly sserts:story nd history re only the outcome of action, but the hero ofthe story, we never an point unequivocally o him as the author ofits eventual utcome.

Theseremarks emain bscure s long as one does not acknowledgethe newtemporal imensions ntroduced y political ction. After hefutility f life nd the durability f the man-made world, we have toconsider he frailty f human ffairs. This turn may ook puzzling,if not baffling. fter he plea for he durability f work over againstthe evanescent haracter f the objects of consumption, hisway ofunderscoring he frailty f human affairs ooks like a step backwardin the wholeargument f the book. Let us take a closer ook at thisconcept f frailty. t does not bring s back to the futility f life, but4 Actually, heconcept f story has already been anticipated n relation o the power

of remembrance elonging oworks, notablyworks f art. t could not be otherwise,since tory and history) re works f discourse.As speech, hey

elongo the third

level, a level defined by action-and-speech. s works they belong to the world ofdurability. t's this durability hichwill receive new meaning n connection withthe frailty f human affairs. See below.







68 PAUL RICOEUR

takesusbeyond hedurability f work. Frailty s a trait roper o actionas such. How?

First, whereaswork eavesbehindmonuments nd documents hosetotality onstitute hepermanence f the world, ction ncommon xistsonly s long as the actors ustain t. More precisely, hepublic realmis kept oherent hanks o power. And power, s the word suggests,remains lways potential, n contrast with trength which endures.Powerexistswhenpeopleact together; t vanishes when hey isperse.

(Hencethe trong emptation o substitute iolence or power.) Poweris the paradigm f an activity hich eaves no work behind nd exhaustsits meaning n its own exercise.

Furthermore, ction annot scapethe ondition f plurality. hatmeans hat for ach agent heoutcome of an action seldom coincideswith ts original ntention. his constraint xpresses hedépendance findividual ctivity n the web of human relationships. t implies hatsome make an action, others undergo t. Men are both actors andsufferers.

This frailty of human affairs s reflected n the activity fstorytelling. nly when action s over can it be told: action revealsitself ully nly to the storyteller, hat s, to the backward glance ofthe historian. his reaffirms rendt's ssertion hat although historyowes its existence o men, t is still obviouslynot made' by them.

Butwe should be unable o understand hy nd how tory nd historycould be made by the storyteller nd the historian without merelylying, f we did not coordinate heactivity f storytelling nd historywriting ith he main function f political ctivity, amely onfrontingthe hallenge f the frailty f human ffairs: The original, hilosophicGreek remedy or the frailty ad been the foundation f the polis.Nothing llows us to suppose that such is no longer he case today.The causes of frailty re so deeply ooted hat hefunction f politicsoutlives he fate f the polis. I think hat interpret annah Arendt'sthought orrectly f saythat he onnection stablished n TheHumanCondition between the frailty f human affairs and the politicalenterprise rovides otonly guideline orunderstanding hepéripétiesof modern politics but a normative rinciple y which o udge theeclipse of politics as the supreme xpression f free action and tocondemn ll the attempts o dissolvepolitics nto human ngineering.We should aythat he political onstitution f the State s to the frailtyof human ffairs what hedurability f work s to the perishable atureof the products f abor. n this ense,politics xpressesman's ultimateattempt o immortalize himself r herself.







Action, Story nd History 69We maynow return o the ctivity f storytelling nd history riting.

They must be understood n terms of the same effort t self-immortalization. ehave earned his esson n Homer, Herodotus ndThucydides. he permanence f human greatness elies olelyon thepoets.Butthis s possible ecause he ity salready a kind f organizedremembrance. What the poet does is composea mimesis, hat s, acreative mitation of action understood n terms of its politicaldimension.

In her 1958essay The Modern Concept of History The Reviewof Politics, 1958,pp. 570-590),reprinted n Between ast and Futureunder the title The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern, 5Hannah Arendt tarts nce more from he Greek definition f historyas an attempt to save human deedsfrom he futility hat omes fromoblivion. It is true hat n this ssay, the author s more mindful fthe difference etween ncient nd modern history hich esults romthe reversal f the relation between nature nd history. Whereas thetacit ssumption f Greek historiography s the distinction etweenthe mortality f men nd the mmortality f nature, etweenman-madethings nd things hich ome ntobeing ythemselves, ith he dventof Platonism nd Christianity t is man who is seen as immortal ndnature erishable. his reversal ccounts or hefact hathistory ackedreal philosophical ignificance n Western hought until Vico. Butmodern man's lack of interest n personal mmortality, is reverencefor he ron aws of nature nd the ncreasing ecognition hat historyis made bymen ust as nature s made byGod, according o Vico'smotto, has brought s back to the Greek assessment f the task ofhistory. t is no longer he futility f mortal ife which alls for the

remedyf remembrance, ut the futility f action tself. The Concept

of History confirms he Human Condition on this point: Action[incontrast with abrication], s the Greekswere he first o discover,is in and by tself tterly utile; t never eaves an end product ehinditself.

Nevertheless, his analysis does not prevent Hannah Arendt fromacknowledging hat here s a modern oncept f history. his conceptis based on the belief n the process-character ervading oth historyand nature. Certainly othing more harply istinguishes hemodernconcept of history rom hat of antiquity. This concept of process

is as far from hristian schatologys it s from he Roman

conceptionof history s a storehouse f examples nd from heGreek oncept f5 See also: History and Immortality, artisan Review, Winter 1957,pp. 11-53.







70 PAULRICOEURremembrance f the perishable. t amounts o the concept f an earthlyimmortality f mankind, which finds its climactic onsummationin Hegel's philosophy.

But, precisely ecause the stress s once again laid on the publicrealm thanks to the rise of the secular state of modern man -politics egains that grave nd decisive elevance or heexistence fmen which t has lacked sinceantiquity ecauseit was irreconcilablewith strictly hristian nderstanding f the ecular. Once more he

drive oward mmortality ies t the foundation f political ommunities.In thisway, Hannah Arendt eems more nterested n the rediscoveryof antiquity hrough heprocessof secularization han n the noveltyof the modern oncept f history. f course, the mmortalizing rocessmay become ndependent f cities, tates nd nations; t encompassesthe wholeof mankind, whosehistory egel was consequently ble tosee as one uninterrupted evelopment f the Spirit. But politicallyspeaking,within he secular realm tself ecularizationmeant nothingmore or less than that men once more had become mortals.

The reader may wonder, nevertheless, whether the earthlyimmortality f the ecular realm, n modern erms, till eaves roomfor the kind of meditation n the frailty f human affairs roposedin TheHuman Condition, as the ecular ealm xtendedmore tabilityto the whole of mankind han the Greek polis1}Does not the veryconcept f process xpress subtle bliviousness othe frailty f humanaffairs? s not Marx's notion f making history he heerdenial ofwhatwas said about history, amely hatwe do not make it, rather,wecomprehend t only hrough hebackwardglanceof the torytellerand the historian?

Here we reach hepoint

whereArendt must declareher nti-modernstance. The very oncept of making history marks the regressionof acting o making. n the modern historical onsciousness we caneasilydetect he age-old attempt o escape from he frustrations ndfragilities f human ction by construing t n the mageof making.This is why heessaydevoted o The Modern Concept of Historyis both n overt ecognition f the nescapable riginality f the modernageand a covert enial of its main claim, that s, earthly mmortality.The failure f this laim s the ecret f the growingmeaninglessnessof the modern world which he essay underscores n its ast pages.

The reason for his failure s the shattering f the llusion hat historycan be made. Only patterns an be made,' whereasmeanings annotbe, but, like truth, will only disclose or reveal themselves.







Action, Story nd History 71What Hannah Arendt ultimately epudiates s the substitution f a

contemplative hilosophy f history, ith ts escape nto he whole,for political hilosophy, hich emainswithin he borders f the vitaactiva. Nothing mong the chievements f the modern ge convincesher hat he hierarchy ithin he vita ctiva tself where the ctingof the statesman ccupies the highest position, the making of thecraftsman nd artist n intermediary, nd the aboringwhich rovidesthe necessities for the functioning f the human organism the

lowest - that his hierarchy ould be reversedwithout nspeakabledamages.

The detour hrough he essay The Modern Concept of Historymayperhaps ast some ight n the puzzling ages which onclude hechapter on Action in The Human Condition. Taught by thefrightening ransformation f political hilosophy hen t s submittedto the claim of making history s a whole, we may return o the veryconcept f mmortality hrough olitics.To what xtent oes HannahArendt ssume his oncept, venunder he ondition f a moremodestconcept of politics?

The answer o this uestion s difficult nd dubious. The reason forour hesitation esides n the mbiguity f the writer's osition n tryingto understand he vita activa from the point of view of the vitacontemplativa, without explaining what she means by vitacontemplativa, xcept hat t s thought, otknowledge. hisambiguousposition llows her both to write n apology for politics ver againstits reduction o social and economic activities, nd to resist ll theillusions inked o the ttempt f mortals o immortalize hemselves.Here the Nietzschean ide of the hinker alancesher Aristotelian ide.This

explainshe

trangewayn which he ection n action s

closed.Stress s laid not only on the frailty f human affairs but on theweaknesses of the remedies themselves. These weaknesses aresummarized n two words: rreversibility nd unpredictability. eedlessto say, these erms ut the ast touch on the underlying hilosophy ftime. On the one hand, what has been done cannot be undone. On theother hand, what follows annot be forecast. Now, what defense anwe muster gainst these ultimate weaknesses f human time when /'/has withstood he challenge f political ction? To irreversibility, heonly nswer s the power to forgive', o unpredictability, hepower of

promise. Forgiveness unties what is tied; promise binds what isuncertain. here re, of course,political pplications opromise pactasunt ervando: reaties re inviolable); t s doubtful hat here s room







72 PAUL RICOEUR

for forgiveness n politics. We have obviously reached if nottrespassed a threshold, heone which onnects he vita ctiva to thevita contemplativa. his trespassing may explain the perplexity freaders onfronted ith his finaldeclaration: The miracle hat avesthe world, herealm f human ffairs, rom ts normal, material' uinis ultimately he fact of natality, n which the faculty f action isontologically ooted. And the ast ines: It is this faith n and hopefor he world hat found perhaps ts most glorious nd most uccinct

expression n the few words with which he Gospelsannounced heir'glad tidings': A child has been born unto us' . Period.We willbe less puzzled by this unexpected nding f we locate t on

the rajectory f the emporal xperience nderlying annah Arendt'sphilosophical nthropology. his trajectory tarts with he deathlessrepetition f the natural world, goes through he futility f laboringand the durability f cultural works, nd finally eaches frailty moreformidable han ny futility. his acknowledgment f the frailty f ahistory hat we don't make, and which undermines ll the worksthat we make, sounds ike n ultimate mementomori. Our mortalityis, so to speak, reasserted t the nd of our travel. What, hen, emainsto the thinker not to the political nimal - in front f death? Theexaltation f birth, f a new beginning. nly natality perhapsescapesthe llusion of immortality n the part of mortals who thinketernity.

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