Analysis Of The Human Condition By Hannah Arendt

In The Human Condition, philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt argues that the vita activa, or “active life,” is the fundamental condition of human existence. The human condition as described by Hannah Arendt is described into three fundamental activities. These are called Labor, Work and Action. To define action one must first understand what ‘labor’ is and what ‘work’ is and how these two are different from each other.
Labor is that activity which corresponds to the biological processes and necessities of human existence, the practices which are necessary for the maintenance of life itself. Producing food and shelter can be considered the most basic kind of laboring. Laboring is the naturalness of the human condition, and it includes …show more content…
Firstly, whereas labor is bound to the demands of biology and nature, work violates the realm of nature by shaping and transforming it according to the plans and needs of humans; this makes work a distinctly human (i.e. non-animal) activity. Secondly, because work is governed by human ends and intentions it is under humans' sovereignty and control, it exhibits a certain quality of freedom, unlike labor which is subject to nature and necessity. Thirdly, whereas labor is concerned with satisfying the individual's life-needs and so remains essentially a private affair, work is inherently public; it creates an objective and common world which both stands between humans and unites …show more content…
She tells that humanity is a paradox of plurality and that, through speech and action, individuals distinguish themselves and become distinct, revealing the ‘who’ behind the what. She also says that to a unique individual, no one existed before he did, because they had not revealed themselves through speech and action. Each person perceives the world differently and an individual’s reality is only as large as what he or she perceives. A person that the individual hasn’t met doesn’t exist in that individual’s