Preliminary: The human capacity to begin

Before I can discuss the notion of natality, I need to set out Arendt's conception of the capacity to begin, since this conception is essential for an understanding of natality.

Arendt holds that what is special about human beings, what distinguishes us from other animals, is the "capacity to begin", by which she means the capacity to leave behind the status quo and create something new, the capacity to go against and beyond the usual course of affairs. She expresses this view most explicitly when, at the beginning of The Human Condition, she remarks that "action", which for her is synonymous with beginning, is "the exclusive prerogative of man; neither a beast nor a god is capable of it" (1958 22-23).² At the very end of Origins of Totalitarianism, she similarly asserts that "beginning [...] is the supreme capacity of man" (1966 479). And in "Understanding and Politics", she even employs the term "essence" in this respect, characterizing the human being as "a being whose essence is beginning" (1994 321).

As a consequence of this conception of the human being, Arendt distinguishes between two modes of human activity. As I just noted, she reserves the term "action" for the exercise of the capacity to begin. To act, for her, is to take initiative, to intervene in a situation or process that would otherwise unfold according to usual practices. By contrast, to comport oneself according to custom, to follow the social rules and norms of the day, does not qualify as action but is mere "behavior" (1958 40-43). So, even though the capacity to act is what defines the human being, the exercise of this capacity is in fact something exceptional. In other words, action is inherently rare, as our doings mostly follow well-established practices.³

The prime manifestation, for Arendt, of the human capacity to begin is a political revolution. She devoted a book-length study, On Revolution, to the grand revolutions of the modern age -the American, French, Russian, and Hungarian revolutions.⁴ In these events, the human capacity to break with the past and make a new beginning has been most conspicuous. However, her notion of beginning also applies on a smaller scale. The site of engagement need not be national or world politics. It may be your neighborhood, or your workplace, or your university. For example, at a meeting, to speak up and take a stand against the predominant opinion rather than to let the meeting run its predictable course, or, when witnessing an instance of police abuse, to stop and intervene rather than to move along as you are supposed to, or, at its smallest, to engage with a person living on the street whom everyone else ignores -such deeds are no less exercises of the capacity to begin, and hence instances of action as opposed to behavior.⁵ They may at first be individual, isolated acts, but they may then inspire others to join in and thus give rise to a larger, concerted endeavor.

The puzzle: The capacity to begin is rooted in natality

Having presented Arendt's conception of the capacity to begin, I can now turn to her notion of natality.

If we go by the etymology of the word, "natality" -from the Latin natus, "born"- simply means the fact that we human beings come into the world through birth, just as "mortality" means the fact that we leave the world through death. And indeed, Arendt defines natality as "the fact that human beings appear in the world by virtue of birth" (1965 211; cf. 1958 8, 1996 51, 2006 174, 196).

This is a very clear and unambiguous definition. So where does the problem lie?

The problem arises from what Arendt says about the significance of natality. The attributed significance does not seem to fit the stated definition. In other words, there is an apparent mismatch between what natality is said to be (the definition) and what it is said to entail (the significance). What I am referring to is Arendt's claim that our capacity to begin is, as she puts it in The Human Condition, "ontologically rooted" in natality, that we "are capable of [action] by virtue of being born" (1958 247). Arendt thus maintains that our capacity to begin derives from the fact that we come into the world through birth. We find this claim not only in The Human Condition, but in all of her major works, albeit each time worded differently.⁶ Let me cite the most important passages in this respect, as they will serve as points of reference in what follows:

[The freedom of man] is identical with the fact that men are being born and that therefore each of them is a new beginning, begins, in a sense, the world anew. [...] [T]he very source of freedom is given with the fact of the birth of man and resides in his capacity to make a new beginning. (^{Arendt 1966} 466)

Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man's freedom. Initium ut esset homo creatus est -"that a beginning be made man was created" said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man. (^{Arendt 1966} 479)

The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, "natural" ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. (^{Arendt 1958} 247)

The very capacity for beginning is rooted in natality, in the fact that human beings appear in the world by virtue of birth. (^{Arendt 1965} 211)

Philosophically speaking, to act is the human answer to the condition of natality. Since we all come into the world by virtue of birth, as newcomers and beginnings, we are able to start something new; without the fact of birth we would not even know what novelty is, all "action" would be either mere behavior or preservation. (^{Arendt 1972} 179)

No doubt every man, by virtue of birth, is a new beginning, and his power of beginning may well correspond to this fact of the human condition. (^{Arendt 1981} II 6)

In these passages, Arendt discusses the connection between natality and the capacity to begin as if her remarks were obvious, as if they did not require further explanation. Yet in fact they are not obvious but rather puzzling.⁷ What exactly is the connection between the capacity to begin and the condition of birth?⁸ How does this special human capacity derive from the particular process by which we come into the world?⁹

Every (human) birth is a new beginning

Arendt suggests in her remarks an answer to this question. She says that we are, each of us, through birth, a new beginning (cf 1966 466, 1972 179, 1981 ii 6). Apparently it is this claim that is meant to establish the connection between the fact of birth and the capacity to begin. So Arendt's argument seems to be the following: We possess the capacity to make a new beginning because we are, each of us, through birth, a new beginning.

But this first answer provokes a further question: In which sense is each of us, through birth, a new beginning? What makes this question particularly acute is that the claim about birth being a new beginning seems to be in contradiction with a fundamental element of Arendt's thought, namely her opposition between life and action. Arendt sees a stark contrast and tension between the circularity and repetition of the life process and the linearity and innovation of action (cf. 1958 70, 119, 1965 60-61, 112, 2005 116-117, 148-149, 2006 147). Understood as the biological process of parturition, birth is hence not a new beginning in Arendt's sense. It is not something extraordinary, not a disruption or transcendence of the status quo. To the contrary, it is a necessary part of the cycle of life, a recurring moment in the endless cycle of generation and destruction. It is therefore the very opposite of a beginning in her sense.

The solution of the apparent contradiction is that, when Arendt says that every birth is a new beginning, she is referring to human birth, not birth per se. In other words, not the mere biological process of parturition but the advent of another human being is a new beginning for her. In The Human Condition, we find a passage where she makes that explicit, a passage where she indicates that she uses the word "birth" in a specific sense that only applies to human beings:

Nature and the cyclical movement into which she forces all living things know neither birth nor death as we understand them. The birth and death of human beings are not simple natural occurrences, but are related to a world into which single individuals, unique, unexchangeable, and unrepeatable entities, appear and from which they depart. Birth and death presuppose a world which is not in constant movement, but whose durability and relative permanence makes appearance and disappearance possible. (^{Arendt 1958} 96-97)

This passage is easily overlooked because it is located in the chapter on labor, not in the parts of the book where Arendt talks about natality. And it has indeed often been overlooked, namely by those of her readers who think that, with the notion of natality, Arendt asserts a connection between life and action, or nature and politics. Martin Jay, for instance, claims that "[Arendt's] frequent insistence on birth, or 'natality' as she insisted on calling it, as the prototype of [new beginnings] ties action to the rhythms of the natural world, which she usually denigrated as the sphere of the animal laborans" (Jay 252). Similarly, albeit in an approving rather than critical mode, Miguel ^{Vatter (2006)} and Laura ^{Quintana (2009)} propose that, with the notion of natality, Arendt moves away from and sets a counterpoint to the stark opposition of life and action which she assumes in other contexts. They argue against those commentators who, because of that opposition, see Arendt as a proponent of "negative biopolitics", i.e. of a politics that "seeks to dominate or exclude [mere life]". They contend that the notion of natality shows that Arendt calls for -or at least allows for- a "positive biopolitics", i.e. a politics that "recognizes" and "frees" the individuals' mere life such that this life can "express itself" in the public sphere (Quintana 186-187, 194-198).¹⁰ Also to be mentioned in this context is Peg Birmingham's interpretation. While Birmingham does not use the term "biopolitics" with reference to Arendt's position, she, too, argues that the notion of natality calls into question Arendt's own opposition between life and action (cf Birmingham 2006 92-93). Jay, Vatter, Quintana, and Birmingham arrive at this conclusion because they see the term "natality" as referring to birth in the biological sense, to birth as an aspect of natural (or "mere") life. The above passage proves this view wrong. For Arendt, natality/birth pertains only to human existence; (mere) nature does not "know" birth.¹¹ The notion of natality hence does not contradict but, to the contrary, confirms the opposition between (mere) life and (human) action.¹²

Besides being belied by the above passage, the readings of Jay, Vatter, Quintana, and Birmingham are also inherently problematic because they make Arendt's thought seem inconsistent. All four readers indeed acknowledge that their interpretation of the notion of natality is -or at least appears to be- incompatible with the opposition of life and action that Arendt posits in several of her writings.¹³ Now, the principle of charity demands that a thinker not be charged with inconsistency unless it is unavoidable to do so, that is, unless no consistent interpretation can be found. And, as I have begun to show, there is an interpretation of Arendt's notion of natality that is consistent with her opposition of life and action. Hence, the inconsistent interpretation of the four readers must be rejected.¹⁴

We see now one of the reasons why Arendt's remarks about natality are perplexing: She does not specify in these remarks that she employs "birth" in a specific sense that only applies to human beings. Why did she omit this important specification? She seems to have thought that her understanding of "birth" is the common understanding of the word. The fact that she uses the phrase "as we understand them" in the above passage gives that impression.

That Arendt uses the word "birth" in a peculiar manner is a crucial piece of information, but it does not by itself resolve the puzzle. For the question now becomes: What is the specific, human-only sense of "birth" that Arendt has in mind? And in which way is birth in this sense -i.e. the birth of a human being- a new beginning?

Every human being is unique

The first place to look for an answer is the passage where Arendt makes explicit that "birth" for her applies only to human beings. There she says (I repeat):

Nature and the cyclical movement into which she forces all living things know neither birth nor death as we understand them. The birth and death of human beings are not simple natural occurrences, but are related to a world into which single individuals, unique, unexchangeable, and unrepeatable entities, appear and from which they depart. (^{Arendt 1958} 96-97)

We can gather from these two sentences that, for Arendt, human birth differs from the reproduction of other species in the following way: The birth of a human being is the appearance of a unique, inimitable individual, whereas in other species the offspring is just another exemplar of its kind, comparable and replaceable.

But, again, the answer we find is not self-evident but requires explanation. In which sense are human beings unique whereas other animals are not? Are not human beings, too, in certain respects comparable and exchangeable? And, conversely, are not all animals, and even all things, in a certain sense unique?

In the passage from which I quoted, the claim of human uniqueness is not further explained. We find an explanation in a later part of The Human Condition, namely when Arendt talks about human plurality. I therefore need to touch briefly on that topic.

"The plurality of human beings" is one of the expressions for which Arendt is best known. As she famously puts the point at the very beginning of The Human Condition, "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world" (1958 7). Though often cited, this claim is seldom properly spelled out. It needs spelling out because the term "plurality" is potentially misleading. In everyday language, this term is generally used as a synonym for multiplicity, for the condition of being more than one. But that cannot be all that Arendt means by it, as her claim of human plurality would then be a mere triviality. The fact that there are many of us is certainly implied, but she must intend something more.¹⁵

Arendt expounds her notion of human plurality at the beginning of the fifth chapter of The Human Condition, the chapter on action. There she makes clear that, indeed, by "plurality" she means more than multiplicity. A plurality, for her, is not merely a collection of many elements but a collection of unique elements: "Human plurality", she declares, "is the paradoxical plurality of unique beings" (1958 176; cf. 1958 8).

In this context, then, she explains in which sense she considers human beings, but not other animals, to be unique. She emphasizes that the uniqueness of human beings is to be distinguished from mere "otherness -the curious quality of alteritas possessed by everything that is" (1958 176). She thus clarifies that, when she says that each of us is unique, she does not merely mean that we are all somehow different, by our fingerprints, say, or the number of hairs on our heads. So what does she mean? She continues:

Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness [of human beings]. Through them, men distinguish themselves instead of being merely distinct; they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men. This appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence, rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human. (1958 176)

Arendt here refers the notion of uniqueness, and hence the notion of plurality, to our capacity to act, to take initiative, to set a new beginning. This means that we are unique to the extent that we make ourselves unique, to the extent that we do not, like other animals, merely reproduce existing forms and ways of life but change them through our initiative.¹⁶ We, the multiplicity of human beings, are a plurality and not merely a multiplicity to the extent that we do not necessarily fall into fixed patterns and categories but have the capacity to depart from the patterns and categories of our day and thereby become unique.¹⁷

We now have an answer to the question raised in the previous section. The birth of a human being is a new beginning insofar as it is the beginning of a new human life, whereby the word "new" in "new human life" is to be understood as meaning not only "distinct" but also "unique". The birth of a human being is the beginning of a unique life story, a story made unique by the individual's capacity for initiative, by her capacity to begin.

We also now have an answer to the other, related question raised in the previous section, the question about Arendt's peculiar understanding of the term "birth". Apparently, for her, this term is inextricably linked to the idea that something new (in the sense of unique) begins, and so she finds that it only applies to human beings. It seems as if, for her, the original meaning of "birth" -birth as the biological process of parturition- has been completely replaced by the metaphorical meaning: birth as the beginning of something new and special, as in "the birth of philosophy" or "the birth of our nation". In this metaphorical sense, indeed, only human beings, not other animals, can be said to be born.

Circular reasoning?

At this point, Arendt's notion of natality might seem to be clear. Natality means the fact of being born. And (human) birth is a new beginning insofar as it is the beginning of something unique, of a unique life story. Thus our capacity to begin is rooted in our natality.

But, in fact, the real puzzle only begins here, because Arendt's argument now appears to be circular. Recall that, in the above-quoted passage from the fifth chapter of The Human Condition, Arendt grounds human uniqueness in the capacity for speech and action, which is the capacity to begin. It is through the initiative of our words and deeds, she says, that we distinguish ourselves, that we make ourselves unique. Now, if our uniqueness thus depends on our capacity to begin, so does the claim that (human) birth is a new beginning, since that claim is, as I have shown, based on our uniqueness. That is to say, the birth of a human being is a new beginning insofar as every human being has the capacity to make her life a new beginning, the capacity to lead a life that does not merely reproduce established forms and ways but goes its own way. Arendt in fact says so explicitly in the first chapter of The Human Condition: "the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting" (1958 9).

Arendt thus acknowledges that the new beginning of birth hinges on the capacity to begin. But in the passages cited in the second section, on page 332, things are said to be the other way around. Arendt there asserts that the capacity to begin is rooted in the new beginning of birth.

So we are faced with the following situation: We started with the question of how the claim of rootedness is to be understood, i.e. of how the capacity to begin is supposed to derive from the new beginning of birth. And after pursuing this question through several steps of analysis, we arrived at the converse claim that the new beginning of birth derives from the capacity to begin. Arendt's remarks about natality thus seem to go in a circle.

The circle is most evident when we juxtapose the following two affirmations (already quoted):

The very capacity for beginning is rooted in natality, in the fact that human beings appear in the world by virtue of birth. (1965 211)

The new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting. (1958 9)

On the one hand, Arendt says that our capacity to begin springs from birth, yet on the other hand, she says that birth is a beginning only because we possess that capacity. Note that the circle is not confined to these two affirmations, and as such we cannot explain it away as a mere slip of the pen, since, as we have seen, both of them are repeated in other places and other words. So what is going on here? Is Arendt's reasoning confused and contradictory?

One way to avoid this conclusion is the following: Basic logic tells us that if two notions or propositions are derivable from each other, then they are in fact the same thing or, more precisely, equivalent descriptions of the same thing. If we apply this logical principle to the present situation, it follows that "natality" and "capacity to begin" are equivalent descriptions of the same thing. Put the other way around, if "natality" and "capacity to begin" are meant as synonyms, then Arendt's circular propositions are logically consistent.

Many readers of Arendt indeed treat "natality" and "capacity to begin" as synonyms, that is, they take "natality" to be just another word for the capacity to begin (cf. Beiner 362; Bowen-Moore 23; Brunkhorst 188; Dietz 102, 127; Tassin 90, 139; Lenis Castaño 37; Biss 762).¹⁸ Oddly, though, none of them explains why they understand "natality" in this way¹⁹. This lack of explanation is odd because, as far as I know, Arendt never explicitly equates "natality" and "capacity to begin" and because, as we will see, there are important reasons for not treating the two expressions as synonyms.²⁰ It looks as if these readers have been led by the appearance of circularity to draw the logical inference I suggested, but do not recognize that this understanding of "natality" is not un-problematic and not generally accepted.²¹

Let us examine what this understanding entails. What does it mean to consider "natality" to be a synonym for "the capacity to begin"? Taken literally, "natality" signifies the condition of being born, and as such it is not the same as "the capacity to begin". To say that "natality" signifies the capacity to begin therefore means that the term should not be taken literally but as a metaphor. That the aforementioned readers treat the two expressions as synonyms hence appears to be based on the following view: In Arendt's remarks about natality, birth as the starting point of a human life operates as a metaphor for the new beginning of which the individual is capable. In other words, birth as the starting point of a human life represents symbolically the new beginning that the individual, through her words and deeds, may eventually make.

That Arendt uses the terms "natality" and "birth" metaphorically has already been suggested at the end of the previous section, when I discussed why, for her, "birth" applies only to human beings. There I noted that, apparently, this word is for her inextricably linked to the idea that something new and unique begins. Thus, it seems that she uses "natality" and "birth", respectively, as a metaphor for new beginning.

It is hence undeniable that the metaphorical interpretation possesses a certain plausibility. It is suggested by Arendt's peculiar understanding of the term "birth" and by the apparent circularity of her remarks about natality. However, it does not solve the puzzle I highlighted at the beginning, the puzzle of how to understand Arendt's claim that the capacity to begin is rooted in natality. Quite the contrary, under this interpretation the puzzle becomes even more acute. If "natality" were a metaphor for the new beginning of which the individual is capable, the claim of rootedness would become vacuous, even nonsensical. For the claim would then mean, when spelled out, that the capacity to begin is rooted in the new beginning brought about by exercising the capacity to begin, or, put more simply, that the capacity to begin is rooted in the exercise of the capacity to begin. And that is a rather empty statement, if it makes any sense at all. It is difficult to believe that this is what Arendt had in mind, especially when we recall that she reiterated the claim in every major work and so, apparently, considered it to express an important point.²²

Newcomers in the web of human relationships

In "On Violence", Arendt glosses the term "natality" by saying that "we come into the world by virtue of birth, as newcomers and beginnings" (1972 179).²³ I would now like to propose an interpretation of the claim of rootedness that takes its bearings from this passage, and in particular from the word "newcomers". I contend that, when Arendt says that the capacity to begin is rooted in natality, what she means by "natality" is neither the biological process of parturition nor, metaphorically, the capacity to begin itself, but the arrival of newcomers in the web of human relationships.

Let me explain. "The web of human relationships" is an expression that Arendt coins in The Human Condition (cf. 1958 183-184). It stands for the manifold network of interpersonal relations -relations of affection, friendship, cooperation, authority, obligation, etc.- that constitute the human world. Now, every child that is born is a newcomer to this web of relationships and consequently induces changes in it. The people close to the child must build a relationship with her, which may lead them to change their relationships with others. Conversely, the child must build relationships with those who tend to her, and soon enough she will begin to develop relationships with strangers. To put the point more concretely: When a child is born, the parents must establish a relationship with her, and the child with them. That will affect the relationship of the parents to each other, to the grandparents, to their friends, and to others.²⁴ A couple of months or years later, at the playground or in kindergarten, the child will begin to get to know other children, and through her initiative her parents will engage with other parents. This process will continue when she starts school and then, later on, when she enters the public sphere as an adult. Thus, because of the newcomer, new threads are woven and new connections tied in the web of human relationships, while some old threads may be loosened and some old connections undone. In short, the birth of every child stirs up the web of relationships and so prevents it from petrifying.

Upon a closer look, we can see that Arendt refers to this aspect of (human) birth in several of the passages about natality, albeit in a way that is not immediately evident, namely when she says that, through birth, new human beings "appear in the world".²⁵ By "world", Arendt does not mean the universe, or all there is, but the artificial home that we, human beings, create for ourselves within the universe (cf 1958 2, 136-139). The web of human relationships is one essential component of the world in this sense (cf 1958 182-183). (The other essential component is the durable things -dwellings, furniture, and clothes, but also tools and machines-which we build in order to protect ourselves from, and employ for our benefit, the forces of nature.) When Arendt says that, through birth, new human beings appear in the world, she is thus, implicitly, referring to the fact that the web of human relationships is constantly shaken up and altered by the appearance of newcomers.²⁶

So every (human) birth spurs the creation of interpersonal relationships. And this means that it spurs action, since the creation of interpersonal relationships is action in Arendt's sense. Every creation of a new relationship -a new friendship, a new cooperation, a new apprenticeship, etc.- is, in its own right, a small new beginning, and it may grow into or become part of a greater new beginning. Hence the point of the preceding paragraph can also be formulated in terms of action: The child must act in order to establish a place in the world, in the web of human relationships, and she thereby forces the people she meets to respond to her initiative, i.e. to act in return. Thus, every birth is a source of action. As Arendt puts it in "The Concept of History", "through [the fact of natality] the human world is constantly invaded by strangers, newcomers whose actions and reactions cannot be foreseen by those who are already there" (2006 61).²⁷

The insight that every (human) birth is a source of action brings us close to Arendt's claim of rootedness, but not quite all the way. For Arendt does not just say that birth is a source of action, but that it is the source of the capacity for action. And that is a significantly stronger claim. Not only the exercise of the capacity to begin, but the very capacity is supposed to derive from the condition of birth. On my interpretation, this stronger claim can be understood if we consider that birth is necessarily -not just possibly- a source of action. The child must act, she must establish a place in the existing web of relationships, and she thereby forces others to act too, to respond to her initiative. Every birth thus calls for action, both from the child and from others. And so, to the extent that a capacity is brought about -and kept alive- by that which makes the capacity necessary, the condition of birth can be said to be the source of the capacity for action. In other words, this capacity depends on that condition in the sense that, without the constant arrival of newcomers, it would probably atrophy and eventually disappear. This, then, is what Arendt means, I submit, when she says that the human capacity to begin is rooted in natality.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude the paper with a remark on the significance of the notion of natality as I have construed it. At the beginning of The Human Condition, Arendt asserts that natality "may be the central category of political [...] thought" (1958 9). At first glance, this claim seems strangely hyperbolic. Why should natality, of all things, be the central political notion? My interpretation allows us to understand the claim. Natality as the constant arrival of newcomers underlies the continuing existence of the realm of politics. If there were no newcomers through birth, human society would sooner or later find a stable configuration, a perpetual form of organization, and the political realm -in the narrow sense that Arendt gives to the term, i.e. the realm of action and new beginnings- would thus vanish. The unending arrival of newcomers, who develop their own perspectives and opinions, prevents this kind of immobilization and keeps the political realm alive. In this sense, indeed, natality is central to politics.