This paper, inspired by Hannah Arendt’s ontology of human action as expressed in The
Human Condition, draws some lines of connection between Arendt’s notion of plurality, on
the one side, and the ways to conceive both identity and identity politics on the other.
By showing that identity (the identity of a person or of a group) is not something given
but rather a contingent set of features emerging in the public sphere, the paper criticizes
identity politics as proposed by Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth, showing that identity
is not the object but rather the unforeseeable outcome of recognition.
