The Human Condition
by Arendt, Hannah (2013)
Abstract
A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, 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 fortieth anniversary of its original publication, contains an improved and expanded index and a new introduction by noted Arendt scholar Margaret Canovan which incisively analyzes the book's argument and examines its present relevance. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was one of the leading social theorists in the United States. Her Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy and Love and Saint Augustine are also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Key Passage
This subjectivization of modern science, which is only a reflection of an even more radical subjectivization of the modern world, has its justification in this case in the fact that, in- deed, most work in the modern world is performed in the mode of labor, so that the worker, even if he wanted to, could not "labor for his work rather than for himself," and frequently is instrumental in the production of objects of whose ultimate shape he has not the slightest notion. (p.141)
Keywords
Arendt, Technology, Modernity, Animal Laborans, Homo FaberThemes
The Human Condition [1958], Arendt CitationsLinks to Reference
- https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ARBJAgAAQBAJ
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ARBJAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=arendt+human+condition&ots=dFeusJMB1E&sig=LfzpGMGtY8xcXijk7XpJao2L9ak
- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/af46/d95e3728c38a3cccbbf60c58282c94bbf697.pdf
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