Abstract：Both Rorty and Arendt criticized modernity and targeted the political field of modernity. They coincidentally viewed the politics of modernity with sympathy as a starting point. Rorty built political unity on sympathy because sympathy meant to reduce the gap so as to expand the scope of “us”. Arendt believed that the gap was the basic connotation of freedom and that the presence of sympathy, being a personal emotion, in the political sphere meant the demise of freedom. “Sympathy”had the opposite function in their theories. As to the question of freedom, Rorty thought that modern metaphysics failed in its attempt to lay a foundation for freedom, and Arendt argued that the value concept of equality and right about modernity was nothing more than the announcement of the rise of “society”and the loss of freedom.They either interpreted freedom as having nothing to do with the economy or as transcendence of the economy. In short, in their logical view, the economic issue was insignificant in nature, largely hiding the essence of the issue. But the sympathetic political philosophy remained the traditional logic of Marx's interpretation of the world.

Keyword：sympathy;freedom of modernity;ontological structure;metaphysics;