Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
The Human Condition
Labor, work, action.
Introduction
The book grew out of Arendt’s Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago in 1956 and appeared there in 1958; its prologue begins with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 as an event that expresses a wish to escape the human condition. Arendt distinguishes three basic activities: labour, which sustains life in endless cycles; work, which produces a lasting world of objects; and action, through which people appear to one another in speech and deeds. She traces how the modern age raised labour to the highest rank and how the “social” displaced the public realm. The German version (1960), revised by Arendt herself, appeared under the title “Vita activa”.
Connections
Builds on
- Politicsc. 335 BCE · Aristotle
Criticizes
- Capital1867 · Karl Marx
Taken up in
- Homo Sacer1995 · Giorgio Agamben
- Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood1997 · Adriana Cavarero
More works by Hannah Arendt
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