ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that Hannah Arendt’s account of natality and its political-theoretical significance can only be understood in relation to mortality. Arendt understands politics as a distinct response to human mortality and finitude, in contrast to both religious and existential contemplation. As Arendt writes, “Death destroys not only all possession of the world, but all possible loving desire for any future thing people may expect from the world. Death is the destruction of their natural relation to the world.” Arendt’s response to the pervasive condition of mortality is best illuminated in contrast to those of Augustine and Martin Heidegger. The conditions of political immortality, however, are inherently fragile. Natality is, for Arendt, the guarantor of human distinctiveness and freedom, but it depends on others to be realized. Because of this dependency, Arendt’s account of agency should be understood as what the political theorist Sharon R. Krause calls “non-sovereign.”.
