Abstract

This article discusses whether, from Hannah Arendt’s point of view, the being-in-common of singularities can be conceived in terms of mutual recognition. Although it is shown that Arendt’s theory of action involves the idea that the identity of singularities is relational, it is also stressed that it is a fluid identity, thrown into contingency. Therefore, it is not a more solid self consciousness what individuals achieve when they open themselves to each other and when they recognize themselves in their difference. What they achieve is to be exposed to the fact of coexistence, to an experience of plurality in which others are more than just a mirror in which they recognize and affirm themselves