The Human Condition: Second Edition

Arendt is challenging, unorthodox, and prescient in this too-hard-to-qualify genre of a work. Without naming the Holocaust, she is always talking about the Holocaust; without knowing it, she predicted the moment we're living in now.This is one for a class or group. She's on my short list of "don't go there alone," but I'm so glad that I've finally read her and this seminal work.

The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt is a magnificent book. I really enjoy Hannah Arendt's work. I highly recommend this book.

If you want to study "The Human Condition". I recommend you understand that "The Human Condition" is a real thing. This book was not interesting at all.If you open your eyes, you would be surprised what you already KNOW about "The Human Condition"

This is a brilliant book that will change the way you think about the possibilities of politics and the potential for humans, acting together, to generate power and change their shared world. Writing in the depths of the Cold War, Arendt was prescient about the internal threats to the U.S. and also the potential that was realized thirty years later when the Iron Curtain crumbled.

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.

Hannah Arendt is easily one of my favorite political philosophers, a clear and powerful thinker of the human condition. But while I was truly impressed by "Eichmann in Jerusalem" and "On Revolution," I am not so keen on "The Human Condition." Here, Arendt seeks to be much more all-encompassing and grander than in her previous works, but I find it more mundane and limited.In this sprawling work (it's only a little more than 300 pages, but it feels longer) Hannah Arendt dissects the three conditions of man: labor, work, and action. Labor is what a slave or a man in the state of nature must do: toil with his body in order to obtain the nutrients and subsistence necessary to live one more day. Work is what a craftsman does, an expression of his individual identity through physical exertion and toil. Action is what humans in a pluralistic action do -- think and speak, invent and imagine in order to win the respect of their equals and to elevate themselves in their eyes.We have seen this sort of formulation before -- most notably in Plato's writings, and indeed Plato and the Greeks (especially Thucycides) are alluded to frequently here. It seems that for Arendt Greece was a pinnacle of human action in which humans thought and battled over ideas in their debates. It is a world of thought and action that Arendt writing as early as 1958 could see being withered and decayed by the growing onslaught of technology -- how technology has made our lives infinitely more convenient, but at the same time alienated us from our hands, and forced us into a cocoon of our lonely private lives. Arendt's call for action -- to restore the thinking and active life -- is noble and earnest, but reading it in a modern context -- with the dominance of Facebook, Apple, and Google -- it also seems quaint and silly.This book is one of Arendt's more abstract works, and it's a very difficult text to read, something that the introducer (who wrote a fabulous introduction) mentioned repeatedly. Earnest Arendt fans must read this title, of course -- but for those who are looking to get started on Arendt, then "Eichmann in Jerusalem" is a much more accessible and relevant work.

Challenging insights into what we know and don't know. Highly thought provoking, gives on pause to consider what we assume -- often without good reason to do so.

Very good condition!

Hannah Arendt dissected the human condition, meaning the human situation rather than human nature, into labour, work and action. She wrote discursively, often in very long sentences and with little structure, regularly dropping seed ideas or little pearls of observation randomly. This leaves her philosophy lacking rigorous supporting argument, direction, or conclusion.Her section on private and public realms, where she points out that ‘private’ meant ‘depriving’ someone of public role and engagement, is fascinating (p38). She points out that bureaucracy is the now prevalent government by nobody (p40). She perceptively foresees that automation will reduce labour (which historically was despised but is now glorified), leaving ‘the rather distressing alternative between productive slavery and unproductive freedom’ (p102). This is very relevant to contemporary concern at potential mass employment displacement by machines, leaving humanity free but needing to develop creative active life.She follows her companion Heidegger in bewailing ‘the instrumentalization of the whole world’ (p157) – her whole analysis of labour is recognisably Heideggerian. She follows Hume in debunking rationality as supreme (p172). She shows great insight in suggesting that the views of Jesus of Nazareth have validity ‘in a strictly secular sense’ (p238) from which she examines forgiveness and promise. Humans are capable of action, but her musings don’t make it clear whether this is prompted by random neuron firing, how the epistemic constraint bites in making decisions to act, or whether a deterministic view of human action is proposed.It seems an odd proposition that the modern age was ushered in by the three great events of the discovery of America, the Reformation, and the telescope (p248), but this is typical of the free unsupported assertions often offered by Arendt. Perhaps renamed as globalisation, Enlightenment, and science, her thesis might have more power. Her brief discourse on the philosophy of mathematics (p266) suggests that mathematics is invented as a mental construct rather than discovered imbedded in nature, but once again she doesn’t justify her assertion and treats it in passing. Her treatment of the philosophy of science is far too sketchy. She suggests that human awareness of the universe may indicate humanity’s universal origin (p270), and that ‘the beautiful and eternal cannot be made’ (p303) without considering the philosophy of emergence.Arendt offered a rich menu of ideas, but too many to be treated with the depth they each need, often leaving unjustified mere assertion.

Read this alongside Sapiens, Brave New World and Carl Sagan's Cosmos and it is super enlightening. Technology has developed so far since Arendts writings, now in 5G, artificial intelligence. Its all changing what it means to be human, this book is super relevant now during coronavirus, highest good is 'staying alive' to continue the human species, we need more optimism Arendt's call to action, public discussion and 'thinking'.

This is a fascinating book - unique and truly perspective-changing. Arendt has a very distinctive voice, and distinguishes many aspects of human life in new ways, such as splitting labour and work. It can take a while to get into, especially since the first sections are so thick with specific definitions, but it's worth sticking with. I also like the layout of the book, it's pleasing to the eye and clear to read.Definitely recommend!

Very interesting and relevant book to many of the issues which society faces today. Arendt is a great political philosopher and her style is easy to grasp.At points it does feel some points are a little laboured, resulting in the book being longer than it needs to.This edition is very good and delivery was prompt.

A classic.