Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor, Imam Sadiq University
Abstract
Introduction
Hannah Arendt, prior to Foucault and Agamben, addressed biopolitics in her works without explicitly using the term. In The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition, she analyzes statelessness and the decline of the public realm, phenomena that lead to the erasure of human action and the reduction of the human being to mere biological existence. In contrast to Agamben’s life-denying conception of biopolitics, Arendt proposes the possibility of a life-affirming biopolitics through the concept of “natality.” Accordingly, framing Arendt’s political theory from the perspective of biopolitics not only deepens our understanding of her critique of death-bound modern power, but also highlights her reflections on a life-affirming biopolitics as a path toward liberation from the deadly logic of modernity, as seen in Auschwitz and the Gulags. This article, therefore, defines and contrasts both life-denying and life-affirming biopolitics and situates Arendt’s thought within these two strands. To clarify her position, the concepts of zoē, bios, and natality are first examined in their ontological interrelations, followed by an explanation of how they correspond to the various forms of human activity; namely labor, work and action.
Materials and Methods
Biopolitics emerges as an interdisciplinary field centered around the nature/society dualism, not to indicate a conflict between the two, but their interaction. Jean-Luc Nancy views biopolitics as a political order shaped by biological sciences, aiming to manage, surveil, and dominate individuals' lives. Biopolitics is not a side concern, but a form of politics where biological and social lives are intertwined. Here, life shapes politics, and politics shapes life. Biopolitics can be seen as a system of strategies connecting the human and natural sciences, directing population behavior, reproduction, and social ways of life integrated with biology. This creates a new break in governance practices, where political and biological spheres intersect, making life the focus of biopolitical interventions. Foucault highlights how biopolitics led to technologies of power centered on human biological processes, influencing not only biological management but also population organization within monitorable social structures. Roberto Esposito extends the concept by distinguishing between "life-affirming" biopolitics, which seeks to protect life, and "life-denying" biopolitics, seen in totalitarian regimes like Stalin's and Hitler's.
Discussion
In The Human Condition, Arendt identifies three fundamental human activities: labor, work, and action. Labor is tied to biological survival and the natural cycle of zoē; work is concerned with the fabrication of durable objects; and action, which corresponds to Aristotelian praxis, is linked to freedom, the appearance of the individual among others, and bios. Unlike labor and work, action is initiatory and capable of bringing about a new order. For Arendt, human natality is the basis of our capacity to begin anew and the condition of the possibility of political freedom. In Arendt’s thought, natality is a fundamental concept that opens the path to liberation from the monotony of biological life (zoē) and even the repetitiveness of social life (bios). Natality refers to the human capacity to initiate something new, an inherent potential that comes into the world with birth. Contrary to common assumptions, this potential does not emerge in separation from nature but rather in a creative engagement with it. Arendt develops this concept through her reading of Augustine, as well as Heidegger’s notion of thrownness. Just as Heidegger’s Dasein is a being thrown into the world without consent but still tasked with giving meaning to its existence, Arendt’s natality indicates that although humans are born into pre-given circumstances, they always retain the possibility of a new beginning. Thus, natality forms a bridge between zoē and bios: it emerges from biological life, yet through spontaneity and action, it transforms social and political existence. For Arendt, if a redemptive form of biopolitics is possible, it lies precisely where natality functions as the politicization of zoē, rather than the mere repetition of bios.
Conclusion
A biopolitical reading of Arendt’s thought clarifies that she theorized both of its strands, life-denying and life-affirming biopolitics. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt offers a sociohistorical analysis that exemplifies thanato-politics, where human beings are reduced to mere biological life. In The Human Condition, she presents an ontological approach to human activity by distinguishing between labor, work, and action, and linking the Aristotelian concepts of zoē and bios to biological and political life. Within this framework, “natality”, the capacity to begin anew, becomes a central concept: the foundation of freedom and human action. Arendt blends Heideggerian ontology with political philosophy to define natality as a fundamental trait of the acting human being, a capacity that bridges the realms of life and politics. From this perspective, freedom is not a goal but the very existential condition of being human in the world. Natality, as a liberating force, not only prevents the reduction of political life to bare life but also enables a vitalist synthesis of bios and zoē. In Arendt’s view, political life is the arena in which human spontaneity manifests through collective action.
Keywords
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