Compare and contrast the roles of memory and remembering in Arendt and Nietzsche - Essay Example

Her position towards the unsettled nature of power grounded on the commemorations suggests the requirement to be careful in mining her thoughts for potential property to adduce to the philosophical problem of the foundations. However, considering the memory as a vigorous capacity, as per the analysis of Arendt where it indicates that we should, advocates that we might prolifically view rationalization in comparable terms. To begin with, Arendt’s description of the link between the reminiscence of a collective chronological narrative and action bears an affinity that is descriptively intriguing to Nietzsche’s story of the course that moral and norm values take after their first creation.

Both highlights that the original act is creatively essential, and frame this aptitude to form as one of the vital humanity capacities. They deviate, of course, in their evaluation of the impact that the remembrance of the resourceful act has on the later generations: Nietzsche observes the seamless morality naturalization as one of the main obstacles to moving beyond the prevailing norms whereas Arendt views memory as the political power gatekeeper. In considering the philosophical foundations problem, however, it is their parallel appreciation of the value of creation and action that matters.

This means that the foundational normative claims authority comes, not from their essential correctness, but slightly from the actuality that in understanding that the origin of those claims lies in a human ability to bring forth new beginnings, the memory of those claims might encourage future action and more political freedom active exercise. If, following Arendt, theorists accept a justification of initial normative claims grounded in the ability of the claimant to advance a unique set of claims, it would be wise to borrow other aspects of Arendt’s theory of authority and foundation, as well.

Chiefly, her belief that action, freedom, and politics itself require publicity also applies to the advance of initial normative claims. The same emphasis on the plurality that is necessary for political life allows Arendt to redirect her revolution study away from violence. In addition, it claims instead that the defining feature of successful revolution is “the interconnected principle of mutual promise and common deliberation.” A process of public justification applied to normative claims, complemented by the memory of the initial discovery of that claim, would meet two needs.

First, it would fulfill a requirement implicit in the search for more solid foundations: the requirement that we be able to enact a theory upon that foundation that carries weight in a practical context. Second, and crucially when taking a contextual view of political norms, by subjecting foundational claims to the scrutiny that the memory of their active creation yields, we encourage theorists to dynamically maintain coherence between their foundational claims and the world they seek to describe and affect.

The theoretical limitation on foundational claims that accompanies this view of justification introduces a much higher level of fallibilism and contingency than the old met narratives allowed. Foundational claims supported through an ongoing process of justification relinquish any claim to objective truth or universal applicability. Thus, the