Key Arguments

• Reality is 'not guaranteed primarily by the “common nature” of all men' but by common directedness toward the same object across different positions.
• If the object's sameness can no longer be discerned, neither human nature nor 'the unnatural conformism of a mass society' can save the common world.
• Destruction of the common world is usually preceded by the destruction of its many presentable aspects to human plurality.

Source Quotes

Only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those who are gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear. Under the conditions of a common world, reality is not guaranteed primarily by the “common nature” of all men who constitute it, but rather by the fact that, differences of position and the resulting variety of perspectives notwithstanding, everybody is always concerned with the same object. If the sameness of the object can no longer be discerned, no common nature of men, least of all the unnatural conformism of a mass society, can prevent the destruction of the common world, which is usually preceded by the destruction of the many aspects in which it presents itself to human plurality.

Under the conditions of a common world, reality is not guaranteed primarily by the “common nature” of all men who constitute it, but rather by the fact that, differences of position and the resulting variety of perspectives notwithstanding, everybody is always concerned with the same object. If the sameness of the object can no longer be discerned, no common nature of men, least of all the unnatural conformism of a mass society, can prevent the destruction of the common world, which is usually preceded by the destruction of the many aspects in which it presents itself to human plurality. This can happen under conditions of radical isolation, where nobody can any longer agree with anybody else, as is usually the case in tyrannies.

Key Concepts

• reality is not guaranteed primarily by the “common nature” of all men who constitute it, but rather by the fact that, differences of position and the resulting variety of perspectives notwithstanding, everybody is always concerned with the same object.
• If the sameness of the object can no longer be discerned, no common nature of men, least of all the unnatural conformism of a mass society, can prevent the destruction of the common world,
• which is usually preceded by the destruction of the many aspects in which it presents itself to human plurality.

Context

7 THE PUBLIC REALM: THE COMMON (lines 1319–1345): Ontological ground of public reality contrasted with human-nature or mass-conformist accounts.