Following the prologue, chapter one of Hannah
Arendt's The Human Condition sets the framework for her systematic study of
the vita activa. The vita activa according to
Arendt distinguished from the philosophical and theological tradition of vita
contemplativa which that gave precedence to thinking over
action.
The vita
activa
Her analysis of the human condition is made of three fundamental human activities. These will make up the later chapters of the human condition and include:
Labor:
Activities that support life and provide sustenance.
Work:
Activities in which humans transcend nature by reshaping it into crafted
objects.
Action:
Activities between individuals as part of forming a society.
Arednt stresses that every human activity, including being itself, is conditioned by the specific terms in which we exist. Nothing we do is out of time or place, and these set both the possibilities and impossibilities of what we can do. This basic premise is developed into radical insights into the human condition.
Birth, Eternity
and Immortality
Arendt notes that the first action we ever did
was to be born. Physical birth is also the birth of potential and
the faculty of undertaking something new. But being born also means being
sentenced to eventual death which is the end of all potential action. Arendt's
key point is that philosophical traditon has tried to obscure this conditioned
limitedness of the human existence by trying to appeal to eternal unchanging
and unending truths (this is the vita contemplativa).
Arendt on the other hand shows how humans are concerned not with eternity but with immortality. The difference between eternity and immortality is that immortality is within human existence since it is achieved by the trace of the things we do in the world. The quest for immortality is thus specific to the mortal who starts in birth and acts to try to leave a trace beyond his presence on earth.
As set forth by the prologue and chapter 1,
Arendt's objective in The Human Condition is to "rescue from oblivion the
quest for immortality which had originally been the mainspring of vita
activa", that is human action.
Back to: The Human Condition - summary and review
Hannah Arendt - bio and summary of main ideas and books
