To reach a level of understanding, philosophers believe they must move beyond the world of appearances. Arendt cites Plato’s cave as a metaphorical example of how it is believed that appearances limit humans’ access to truth. In this model, existence is divided into two parts: Appearances, and the hidden truth beneath them. However, even philosophers cannot escape the full weight of appearances. They may enter a realm in which they look beneath and beyond, but they must always re-enter it: “The primacy of appearance is a fact of everyday life which neither the scientist nor the philosopher can ever escape, to which they must always return” (24).

Arendt suggests that it is a mistake to focus too singularly on what causes appearances to happen in the first place. By examining appearances themselves, philosophers can learn both what is being revealed and what is being concealed. She proposes that all appearances have a dual function: To show and to conceal.

Arendt challenges the two-world model and the demoted status of appearances. The rational side of science is focused on uncovering truth beyond appearances. This shift created the two-world model, defined by the true-Being and the surface-Appearance. She suggests that because existence is made up of appearance, then it is important not to ignore what is at the surface level. In fact, an animal’s organs work together and build outward to create the world of appearances. Arendt uses this example as proof that life is very committed to the surface level and that humans can never see truth objectively because they live in an appearing world:

It is indeed as though everything that is alive—in addition to the fact that its surface is made for appearance, fit to be seen and meant to appear to others—has an urge to appear, to fit itself into the world of appearances by displaying and showing, not its ‘inner self’ but itself as an individual (29).

The diversity of the natural world is organized around appearances through vision: Plants and animals have visual displays that are designed for this visual realm. Arendt argues that if life is so innately dedicated to appearances, then this worldly realm is worthy of study. She suggests that relevance and meaning may be gleaned from the apparent world. Humans use either self-presentation or self-display in the appearing world. Both are necessary to survive and participate in life. Self-presentation involves the intentional choice about what is revealed about the self and what is held back. Self-display is when Being emerges at the surface. Therefore, the very act of appearing has inherent meaning.

These appearances are either authentic or inauthentic. Inauthentic appearances are the masks and various ways humans change themselves depending on the spectator. Authentic appearances occur when what is on the inside comes to the outside. Arendt claims that the inside part of the self is the same for every individual.

Despite its importance, the world of appearances is reliant on the inner realm. It can only present what has been constructed and determined by the internal self. However, no person offers a perfect external representation of their inner self. As Arendt unravels the difficulty of drawing a line of distinction between the inner and outer parts of the self, she suggests that the language we have is insufficient. The inner life is more metaphysical, whether it is of the mind or the soul, and the exterior life belongs to the world of appearances.

Gestures offer insight into the soul, but language belongs to the mind. Metaphors come closest to offering a description of the life of the mind and the action of thinking. However, the life of the soul is better exhibited through action or a glance. Arendt uses this distinction to draw a line between the soul and the mind. The thinking self utilizes language, revealing that thought and speech are intrinsically linked. Language can never fully express the language of the soul, only the mind. Self-presentation and self-display are the external representations of the life of the mind. Humans exhibit self-presentation when they make active choices about how they want to appear. The ability of humans to act in one way and think in another is a unique human characteristic that is at the core of the problem of thinking—that it is split in two.

Appearances always have dual functions: To reveal and conceal. Self-display is the authentic emergence of the internal, but self-presentation requires a choice. Arendt offers a term to describe what manifests in the world of appearances that may not offer a true representation of what is on the inside or may even be intended to deceive: Semblance. The existence of semblances is fundamental to the world of appearances. Some semblances can be managed by changing one’s point of outlook. If something appears fuzzy in the distance, the viewer can get closer or use a telescope to find the accurate image. However, some semblances cannot be uncovered in this way.

Error is a given within human experience and the world. Error impacts truth, while semblance impacts appearances. Arendt argues that this is the price humans pay for living in a diverse and beautiful world of appearances. Semblances can be either authentic or inauthentic. The latter fall apart under scrutiny, but authentic semblances are more universal. All creatures are subject to authentic illusions—natural errors in judgment that are difficult to change even after evidence has proved them incorrect. The only thing that can alter the authentic illusion is repetition.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant was devoted to the world of appearances. His concept of the “thing-in-itself” was defined as something that is but does not appear in its full form, instead only causing appearances. According to Kant, God or freedom represent this idea. They do not appear, but impact the world of appearances. Kant suggests that every living thing has a ground, a hidden element that does not appear. Self-presentation can force what is in the ground to the forefront, but that is an inauthentic expression.

Arendt is critical of Kant’s theories, arguing that he shaped his ideas to fit his theological agenda. Rather than looking to God for a ground within which something is and causes appearances, Arendt turns to individuals and all things that appear. She argues that not everything that comes up to the surface of appearance is emerging from the ground. She argues that Kant’s mistake—what she calls his theological bias—was fitting his theories around his desire for a higher order outside of the appearing world.

Arendt explains that a person holds both the hidden, inner realm and the external. Kant’s mistake is viewing the inner as more important than the world of appearance. If the point of everything is to move toward the world of appearances, then meaning is found in appearance, not in the ground. The work of all people is to determine whether what emerges in the world of appearances is authentic or inauthentic.

The chapter opens with a bold statement: While discussing the relationship between the subject and the object and the innate relationship between the two, Arendt argues that all life is wrapped up in the relationship between the perceiver and the one being perceived. The relationship between the perceiver and the perceived emphasizes the role of plurality in the world of appearances.

All aspects of life are built around the world of appearances and being perceived by others. Therefore, appearances are extremely important. Arendt is critical of a focus that champions reason above all else, because it convinces thinkers that everything is potentially false. Descartes offered a philosophical solution to this problem through solipsism—that only the self is real. Arendt argues that this is a mistake: Reality and thoughts are two different things. The reality of experience requires other people; it demands plurality.

Scientists penetrate appearances through thinking to uncover authentic semblances. Arendt uses the example of the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. Through observation and study, scientists realized that this semblance was false: That Earth moves around the sun, giving the illusion that the sun is rising or setting. Arendt poses a question: How can a thinker both recognize that every idea has the potential to be disproven and still hold on to a sense of concrete reality? Arendt points to a history of philosophical thought that reveals that a devotion to reason can lead to insanity. She suggests that it is a mistake to make knowledge the goal of thinking.

Arendt suggests that one of the problems with a strict adherence to reason is that there is nothing that suggests that new evidence is truer than old evidence. She blames science for changing the human relationship with truth:

The very notion of truth, which somehow had survived so many turning-points of our intellectual history, underwent a decisive change: it was transformed or, rather, broken down into a string of verities, each one in its time claiming general validity even though the very continuity of the research implied something merely provisional (55).

Science gave a false relationship with truth: That truth is only true in the present moment. Kant distinguishes between intellect and the wish to understand meaning. Therefore, cognition is focused on truth, but thinking is about looking for meaning.