Introduction

“The perplexities of beginning” is a phrase from Arendt's book On Revolution (1963g, 208). The term captures her interest in revolution as an expression of the unique nature of humankind, of the specifically human capacity to make a new beginning. As an exploration of human nature, Arendt's work is philosophical. But it is also political. For all revolutionaries, according to Arendt, confront a challenge that spans politics and philosophy: How can they be founders who create a new order, without limiting the freedom of citizens in the future to choose their own order? What makes being a founder liberating for anyone other than the founders themselves? These questions are “the perplexities of beginning.” Such concerns, which are internal to the idea of revolution, distinguish Arendt's thinking from that of sociologists. For sociologists generally analyze the structural causes of revolution, not what lends integrity to the very concept of revolution.

In this chapter, I seek to achieve three things having to do with Arendt's theory of revolution. The first is to provide an account of how On Revolution fits into Arendt's thought. The book is not only philosophical; it is essential for understanding her entire philosophy. I employ a device that allows us to comprehend Arendt's intellectual profile while avoiding the need to explore all of her writings. This shortcut is to focus on the year 1963, the year Arendt published both On Revolution and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The first book, dealing with democracy, plus the second, relating to Nazism, provide ample exposure to the two poles of Arendt's thinking: that dealing with totalitarianism, and that dealing with liberty. Students can attain a wide- angle view of Arendt as a thinker by appreciating On Revolution in its annual context.

The second task is to provide a summary of key ideas in On Revolution, with a special emphasis on her critique of social science. For Arendt, the social sciences, and especially sociology, reflect a broader phenomenon: the impact of the idea of “the social” throughout modern culture. Arendt believed that sociology grinds down the image of humanity by affirming that thinking is secondary to a more important reality, the field of social forces, which allegedly structures the individual's experience.