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60 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Here, "perseverance" is the right word :), April 4, 2004
In "The human condition", Arendt distinguishes three kinds of activities the human being is capable of: labor, action and work. I will attempt to explain the first two, and I will leave the third to you so as to motivate you to read the book :) Labor is, according to Arendt, those human activities whose main aim is to allow men to survive, for example eating, drinking and sleeping. These activities belong to the private sphere, and while the human being strives painstakingly to perform them, he is not free. On the other hand, Action is the moment when the human being develops the capacity that distinguishes him, the ability of being free. This is the public sphere, where men, after having provided for themselves and their families what was needed to "continue in existence", can at last be free. Arendt shows us the historical evolution of these concepts, and how that evolution is connected to the evolution of the concept of work. At the end of this book, you will have analyzed with her the human condition, from the point of view of the activities that the human being is capable of. What is more, you will be able to have a valid view regarding the past, and an interesting perspective on what is happening now, and on what the future may bring to us. Yes, it is true that this book was released a long time ago, but I believe that it is still as important now as it was then.
Arendt (1906-1975) was a respected professor and thinker, who wrote books that greatly influenced quite a few of her contemporaries. Even though her more significant book was "Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951), "The human condition" is also essential in order to understand her ideas. Not only that, it will probably help you to understand our society, or at least to contemplate it through the eyes of a remarkably good political scientist. I must warn you that "The human condition" isn't overly easy to read, and that you might find yourself re-reading a paragraph a few times before understanding what it means. However, at the end of the book you will realize that the effort is worthwhile, because then all you have read makes sense and leaves you with the sensation of having understood some concepts that you will find useful. On the whole, recommended. You aren't likely to "have fun" reading this book, but it will be useful to you, and if you manage to finish it, you will realize that you benefited from it. So, PERSEVERANCE ): Belen Alcat
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for Contemporary Philosophy courses in Phenomenology, Politics, and Ethics, February 16, 2006
This review is from: The Human Condition (2nd Edition) (Paperback)
This book is extraordinarily accessible and thought-provoking for undergraduate students. I have used it in my course on twentieth-century women philosophers. Arendt, without citing Husserl or Heidegger, enacts what I would call a phenomenology of action. That is, she examines the experience of the vita activa (or life of action) by describing it on its own terms. For Arendt, Marx and Smith were wrong to say that human life is fundamentally about labor or about skilled work. Human life is not mostly for or about the consumption of commodities and entrenching one's family ties. Rather, human life is about establishing a public, political realm that emulates (but does not simply attempt to reproduce) the Greek polis. Humanity is about opening up a space for meaning and for evanescent but important co-creation of what counts as a good life.
For Arendt, action is fragile, frail, unpredictable, and irreversible. Action appreciates the differences between humans within the outlines of a nation, for example, and action does not simply attempt to compel others to yield to a single, sovereign will. Action calls those who participate in true politics to realize the sense of 'e pluribus unum' and to make sure that the plurality or 'pluribus' is not simply a fading memory in the face of the One.
To make her point, Arendt delves into Judeo-Christian scriptures, as well as the history of philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Marx, and Nietzsche), attempting to reconcile a desire for shared power with a need for mutual forgiveness. Students respond well to the nexus of issues that Arendt raises, especially to the idea that 'radical evil' cannot be (but that most ordinary transgressions must be) forgiven.
Arendt helps students prepare for more texts in 20th Century philosophy, especially those by Edith Stein (On the Problem of Empathy), Simone de Beauvoir (Ethics of Ambiguity), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception). Her discussion of action and intersubjectivity is essentially a dialogue with Husserl and Heidgger, and to me this should show her as not only discussing but also enacting respect and forgiveness (respectively).
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25 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new possibility for social action and entrepreneurism, July 20, 1999
By A Customer
Hannah Arendt makes the case that what distinguishes human beings is that they are constantly making new beginnings. This leads her to theories of social action that have implications for our self esteem, our "making of ourselves" and how we influence and participate in social action. She reveals the implications of this inherent tendency to "make new beginnings" in the uncertainty of outcomes of our action. What we start we cannot know the outcome of beforehand. That is, in significant part, because those who come along after we start something will add or change with their own capacity for making new beginnings. This says we need social attributes of foregiveness. She also develops the importance of promising in a culture so that we can create some certainty by this social action. She is writing about social action and involvement in the broad social life. But she could as easily be writing about entrepreneurship and corporate life or any any other social activity. A stimulating book indeed!
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