Customer Reviews

The Human Condition (2nd Edition)

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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

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).

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!

It's hard to give a summary of this book, which touches on so many issues. In her introduction, Margaret Canovan notes that many academic critics, at the time of the book's first publication in 1958, found Arendt's argument "beneath refutation." The book is indeed something of a long essay in form and is not immediately "falsifiable" or arguable in the sense that most narrow academic texts are. Canovan also notes that many readers were thrown by Arendt's ongoing gesture (my words) of explaining contemporary social life in the vocubulary of Ancient Greek thought. In intellectual-history terms, this move of Arendt's is no surprise. She was a student of Heidegger's; many Continental thinkers fell under his spell. (Potential readers of "The Human Condition" might want to contrast it with "The Embers and the Stars" by Erazim Kohak, who also constructs a philosophy out of the etymologies of Greek words, but not of social life, but of the environment and nature.)

In short, Arendt's book is interesting reading for anyone involved in the world of work. Her categories of "labor," "work," and "action" provide an interesting way of thinking about society. A back-cover blurb from poet W. H. Auden talks about "The Human Condition" as "one of those books that seem to have been written especially for me." I would go further and recommend Arendt to any artist or budding artist or anyone who has ever seen themselves as being of an artistic temperament. Arendt provides a philosophical view of the artist in society, as opposed to a lyrical view, which is what one might find in, say, Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." Arendt's vision is more realistic. A wonderful book!

this book starts off with a breathtaking reflections on the launch of the sputnik. arendt seemingly places us before the launch as witness, evoking the kind of awe, wonderment, fear and anxiety that must arise from such a sight. the prologue is amazing.

i could easily come up with at least a dozen potential research projects from this book that arendt just touches on the surface. (as is the case with arendt's philosophy, it is, at its best, always very suggestive but, at its worst, she never follows through on the initial offering.)

and arendt considered this book as her response to the influence of heidegger; i think that this is a most correct assessment. in fact, this is the great heidegger-book that heidegger himself never could have written. in my view, the latter heidegger pales in comparison (on subjects such as technology, poetry, speech, and history, arendt tops her former mentor). heidgger was truely out-foxed by this book.

i suspect that even the amateur (defined here as the lover of an entity-x) will find much in this book to make this a life-changing experience. in philosophy we often talk of such 'life-changing' books but they are really few in number. this is one such book.

be on the look out for the moment where the discussion of nietzsche's conception of the promise effortlessly morphs into the birth of christ as a miracle. (note: for arendt, the miracle isn't christ but the birth itself, for that matter any birth).

full of grace, this book will be devastating and ultimately redeeming.

............ever came close to explaining the workings of man as a political and social animal nearly as well as HA. Since her speculations are grounded in a metaphysics of reality her psychology is sound and policy makers of the right and left both would do well to look at her model before pursuing their dreams of "perfect" worlds.

Arendt's book is really more a disquisition on political theory than an explanation of the human condition in all its endlessly tragic vicissitudes.

It was interesting, and I learned more about ancient Greek and Roman political theory than I really wanted to know; with the most interesting facet being the defining of the terms "labor", "work", and "action" as they pertain to the the means by which the human animal has his being in the world. But by and large, it really didn't touch on the human condition in a way that enlarged my understanding of the essence of its gestalt.

The most interesting chapter is the one on action as the public realm in which some men choose to live and act, and how that affects both the present and the future. While action is essentially ephemeral in nature, its impact on the human condition is one that can and often does have unintended consequences reaching far into the future like ripples on a pond spreading outward from a central occurence. It is that very unpredictability that is its foremost feature.

Labor too is ephemeral in nature, in its attendance on the basic needs of mankind, food and shelter. Only work, in Arendt's estimation is durable and in this category she places all forms of art.

It is not an easy book to read but, given a little effort, accessible to even a novice at political theory.

Arendt begins her opus magnum with a proposal: she states that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 (similar to Vaclav Havel's proposal of the moon landing) has hearkened in a new age of humanity. Following this proposal is one of the most mysterious but rewarding books of the 20th century, in my humble opinion.
I first encountered "The Human Condition" in an undergraduate class regarding the post-modern community. To this day, I still have not completely digested this work. Her objective, in her own words, is to determine "... what it is that we are doing", and her choice of a goal is challenging considering what is to follow. Situating herself between a Greek model of society and a Marxist interpretation of labor, Arendt calls into question our ideas of progress, technology, and even forgiveness, and aims a withering critique at the subjective personality of the post-modern world.
I won't go into a broad summary of her points to convince you to read it, but instead implore the reader of this review to see for themselves what Arendt is doing. Some will give up on this book after a few pages, calling it semantical nonsense. Yet for those who forge a path through Arendt's intelligent interpretation of history will come out on the other side with a new appreciation for the way in which they live their lives, participate in this thing we call "work", and interact with the human community. I can't stress enough how much this book means to me.

Hannah Arendt is one of the foremost political thinkers of the twentieth century. But more than this she is a thinker who attempts to understand the human situation in all its fundamental aspects. Her analysis of the Human Condition is at once a historical and a philosophical work which aims to speak to and describe the contemporary condition of mankind. One important element in the work is her etymological readings of fundamental philosophical concepts. Her tracing of their development and explanations of reality in terms of them is one of the great strengths of the book. Arendt in analyzing these concepts and in describing the human condition shows herself to have both a powerful skill in argument and in narrative.
The basic three- part division between the life of labor, of production, and of action informs her analysis throughout. She attempts to understand the transformations in the condition of mankind through these categories. And one of her great themes is her sense of the decline of the public realm, the realm where action takes place. Her analysis of the problem is by the way far more convincing than her brief suggestion of a possible answer at the end of the book.
I have really said almost nothing in this review about this tremendously insightful and rich work. The reader who wishes to stay with it will learn a whole new vocabulary for understanding the world. Whether the reader agrees with each and every point of Arendt's analysis is not the major question. When you are in her presence you are in the presence of a mind that uplifts and exalts, that makes you sense the world of the mind is a higher realm.
I believe for the ' person for whom ' thought ' is important this can be a very valuable work.

For a secular philosopher, Hannah Arendt certainly presents a challenge to Christian thought. However, much of her writing stimulates lines of thought that would not otherwise have been pursued. She cites Jesus as the "discoverer" of personal forgiveness who presents it as an alternative to the moral system of sacrifices in a temple in his day, thus removing the authority from a priesthood to control the populace. A Christian might rather say of Jesus that he is the creator of forgiveness, not the discoverer, but her observation remains about the dynamics of who controls the moral system in place.