The Human Condition

Second Edition

Hannah Arendt

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780226586601
• eBook ISBN: 9780226586748
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

A classic work of political thought, more relevant today than ever

The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, "the theorist of beginnings," whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution.

A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan's 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen.

A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.
 

Index

Abraham, 243–44

absolutes, 270

abstract art, 323n

Achilles, 25, 193–94

action, 175–247; the agent as disclosed in, 175–81; archein, 177, 189, 222–23, 224; in Aristotle’s bios politikos, 12–13, 25; behavior as replacing, 41, 45; and being together, 23; and birth, 178; as boundless, 190–91; capacity for as still with us, 323–24; contemplation opposed to in traditional thought, 14–17, 85; and contemplation reversed in modern age, 289–94; courage as required for, 186; as creating its own remembrance, 207–8; defined, 7; doing and suffering as two sides of same coin, 190; as exclusive prerogative of man, 22–23; fabrication distinguished from, 188, 192; futility of, 173, 197; greatness as criterion of, 205; Greek and Latin verbs for “act,” 189; history as a story of, 185; in homo faber’s redemption, 236; as idleness for animal laborans and homo faber, 208; interests as concern of, 182; irreversibility of, 233, 236–43; in Jesus’ preaching, 318; in life philosophies, 313n; location of human activities, 73–78; as miracle working, 246–47, 247n; natality and mortality as connected with, 8–9; people distinguishing themselves by, 176; Plato as separating from thought, 223–27; plurality as condition of, 7, 8; plurality as source of calamities of, 220; the polis as giving permanence to, 198; political realm arising out of acting together, 198; prattein, 189, 222–23; process character of, 230–36; products of, 95; and reaction, 190; reification of, 95, 187; as revealing itself fully only to the storyteller, 191–92; revelatory character of, 178–80, 187; society as excluding, 40–41; and speech, 26, 177n.1, 178–81; stories resulting from, 97; strength of, 188–89, 233; as superstructure, 33; as taking initiative, 177; threefold frustration of, 220; traditional substitution of making for, 220–30; understood as fabricating, 322; unpredictability of, 144, 191–92, 233, 237, 243–47; in vita activa, 7, 205, 301; in web of relationships, 184; and work in Greek political philosophy, 301–2. See also deeds; vita activa

admiration, public, 56–57

Agamemnon, 190

agent, the: as disclosed in speech and action, 175–81; stories revealing, 184

agere, 189

aging, 51n.43

agora, the, 160

agriculture: Hesiod on, 83n.8; as liberal art, 91, 91n.24; tilling of the soil, 138

alienation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Prologue
• I. The Human Condition
• II. The Public and the Private Realm
• III. Labor
• IV. Work
• V. Action
• VI. The Vita Activa and the Modern Age
• Acknowledgments
• Publisher's Note
• Index