The Human Condition is a highly influential philosophy book published by Hannah Arendt in 1958. Her focus in the book in on the vita activa ("active life", which was the original intended title of the book). Arendt distinguishes the vita activa from the vita contemplativa that gives precedence to thinking over acting. In the introduction to The Human Condition, she asserts that she wants to bring the vita activa to the foreground after thus far considered by philosophy to be subordinated to that of contemplation.
Arendt's The Human Condition is made up of
two parts. It begins with a systematic study of the vita activa.
This is based on a conceptual distinction between the public domain and
the private domain. Arendt then breaks down the vita activa into
three basic actions: labor, work and action. This analysis is followed
by a historical study of modern scientific progress and secularization.
Central
Themes in The Human Condition
Arendt conceptualizes three main themes at the base of the human condition (both the book at the condition itself):
Labor: an activity that corresponds to the biological process of the human body, to sustaining life itself.
Work: work is was separates humans from nature. It is the manufacturing of objects that transcend the mere needs that labor addresses.
Action: action for Arendt is the manner in which we interact; it is the way in which people distinguish themselves from others as separate and unique beings.
In The Human Condition Arendt seeks to restore a
balance between all these, and to give action the attention it deserves.
Affirming role of action aims to restore men's concern to leave a trace in the
world beyond their own lives. Arendt also wants to restore the meaning of
political action by relating them to human meanings of birth and death.
The Human Condition: Summary by chapter
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