ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the phenomenological lineage and methodology inherent in Arendt's notion of plurality, which is not a plurality of properties but a plurality of first-person perspectives. "Actualizing plurality", for Arendt, is not a static or a substantial concept, but instead describes something that happens, like an activity, the activity of dancing or of conducting a conversation. Acting and speaking form the closely intertwined ontological core domain of plurality, while judging expands its horizon to the dimension of spectators who judge actors and thereby form a community. The space of appearance and the web of relationships, which are the medium of the first-personal intersubjective disclosure of the "who", are dependent on the constant actualizations of acting and speaking through which they not only emerge, but are continuously sustained in their existence. Arendt's original phenomenological approach investigates the specific form of the non-objectifying experience of others in speech and action, and, correlatively, the appearance of a "who" in the world.