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 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. (shrink)

Explores the human condition in a range of world religions and discusses the issue and philosophical implications of comparison itself.

The Human Condition is a response to the growing disenchantment in the Western world with contemporary life. John Kekes provides rationally justified answers to questions about the meaning of life, the basis of morality, the contingencies of human lives, the prevalence of evil, the nature and extent of human responsibility, and the sources of values we prize. He offers a realistic view of the human condition that rejects both facile optimism and gloomy pessimism; acknowledges (...) that we are vulnerable to contingencies we cannot fully control; defends a humanistic understanding of our condition; recognizes that the values worth pursuing are plural, often conflicting, and that there are many reasonable conceptions of well-being. Kekes emphasizes the importance of facing the fact that man's inhumanity to man is widespread. He rejects as simple-minded both the view that human nature is basically good and that it is basically bad, and argues that our well-being depends on coping with the complex truth that human nature is basically complicated. Finally, Kekes argues that the scheme of things is indifferent to our fortunes and that we can rely only on our own resources to make what we can of our lives. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s exposition of the human condition provides the basic framework for a theoretical perspective on close relationships. According to Arendt, the human condition is comprised of three modes of activity: labor, work, and action. Labor is need-driven behavior, work concerns goal-directed activity and the fabrication of things, and action involves the mutual validation of unique individuals. Within this framework, the gift is the means by which relational ties are made concrete. I propose a model of (...) gift-giving organized by two axes: whether or not the partner is singularized by the gift and whether or not the gift is given with an expectation of a return gift. I then apply this model to the three modes of the human condition. (shrink)

One of the features of modernist and postmodernist novels is the way they interrogate classical metaphysics, in the spirit of what Habermas calls post‐metaphysical thinking, otherwise known as the post‐Enlightenment critique of the Enlightenment. As a literary prism, post‐metaphysical thinking is not anti‐metaphysical: it conducts its interrogation and still accommodates both secular and religious frames. Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark are often compared but they interrogate classical metaphysics from different perspectives and for different purposes. In the nineteen‐fifties, Murdoch was an (...) aspiring philosophical author who treated classical metaphysics as a canon of influential myth, while Spark was an aspiring theological author who had recently converted to Catholicism. Through a reading of The Bell and Robinson, both published in the same year, this article describes how the young Murdoch and Spark do what emerging literary authors of the nineteen‐fifties were expected to do: frame the human condition and reflect on its existential dilemma. With their different perspectives they both write within the same paradigm, or theory of mind; against symbolic backgrounds, and among significant dialogues, they make use of similar tropes. But Murdoch and Spark arrive at opposite positions on the relationship between imagination and reality, between logos and mythos, and ultimately on the nature of freedom and contingency. (shrink)

In an age of cloning, virtual reality and artificial intelligence what sort of future is in store for human beings? If it is a "posthuman" future as some predict, will it also be inhuman? On the Human Condition is a thought-provoking and profound reflection on where the idea of the human stands today. Dominique Janicaud argues that while we need to avoid apocalyptic talk of a posthuman condition, as embodied in technology such as cloning, we (...) should neither fall back on a conservative humanism nor become technophobic. Drawing on topical examples such as genetic engineering, the mythology around the Frankenstein myth and the ideas of Pascal and Primo Levi, Dominique Janicaud urges us to acknowledge the fragile and provisional nature of being human. Above all, he argues that even if we do live in a world that is already posthuman, it is not a predicament we can confront alone and heroically, but must share with others. (shrink)

Griffith's second book that gives a detailed account of the biology underpinning his explanation of the human condition. Charles Darwin connected humans with nature but there biology has been stalled, unable to explain the dilemma of the human condition. Griffith's answer defends and dignifies humans, it lifts the burden of guilt, making possible our species' psychological rehabilitation; the real repair or ourselves and our planet.REVIEWS "Could you please send me an extra copy of your book? Yours (...) to me is already out on loan because it was so appreciated"Sir LAURENS VAN DER POST. Pre-eminent philosopher of the 20th century who was a close friend of Carl Jung and author of 24 books."In his book Beyond The Human Condition Jeremy Griffith makes the right emphasis when he identifies the order of the universe and its cosmic and biological evolution as the issue that brings science and religion together. Science shows an increasing complexity in order with cosmic and biological evolution but it finds no meaning to that increase in complexity. Jeremy Griffith finds that a religious vision brings an "integrative meaning" to that order. Moreover it leads him to an ethical vision of integrating love and peace. In all this he gives us a genuinely original and inspiring way of understanding ourselves and our place in the universe. His vision is one I embrace with enthusiasm and commend to all those who are searching for meaning."The late Professor CHARLES BIRCH, 'Australia's leading thinker on science and God'. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax (...) humans away from a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax (...) humans away from a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mediatization was understood as a condition through which a person lost his or her agency. A person mediatized was a person deprived of his sovereign power to act. This understanding is perhaps more pertinent today than ever in describing the way humans are, in a manner, mediatized by their own technological constructs. In a McLuhanesque sense, if we place too much influence on the understanding of the message, we do not understand the medium. (...) In doing that, we become blind to the environments in and through which we must act, for better or worse. The article is a discussion on the conditions of techno-scientific development and their effects on the human condition. (shrink)

The book seeks to illuminate Bergson's view that philosophy is the discipline of thinking that makes the effort to think beyond the human condition so as to extend our perception of the universe. In the book I explore Bergson on time and freedom, on memory, on his reformation of philosophy in Creative Evolution, on religion, on ethics, and on education and the art of life.

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from ‘society’, and political theory from the social sciences. This conventional view has had the effect of distracting attention from many of Arendt’s most important insights concerning the constitution of ‘society’ and the significance of the social sciences. In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s distinctions between labor, work and action, as these are discussed in The Human Condition and elsewhere, are best understood (...) as a set of claims about the fundamental structures of human societies. Understanding Arendt in this way introduces interesting parallels between Arendt’s work and both classical and contemporary sociology. From this I draw a number of conclusions concerning Arendt’s conception of ‘society’, and extend these insights into two contemporary debates within contemporary theoretical sociology: the need for a differentiated ontology of the social world, and the changing role that novel forms of knowledge play in contemporary society as major sources of social change and order. (shrink)

Classical realism and Morgenthau in particular have recently experienced a revived interest in International Relations (IR). The evolving debate has helped to contextualise and reconstruct Morgenthau's thought which until now had been misrepresented in structural realist and early poststructuralist interpretations. However, despite all of its achievements, we have yet to draw more attention to Morgenthau's contribution to contemporary IR theory. To contribute to the closing of this research gap this article considers a set of questions which Morgenthau himself asked at (...) the beginning of his career as its conceptual framework. It is argued that Morgenthau was particularly concerned with the dehumanisation of socio-political life in modern democracies evoked through processes of ideologisation, technologisation, and scientification, which he countered by focusing on a re-introduction of the human factor to politics. This demonstrates that Morgenthau's work is a rich source for IR theory because his intellectual agenda was driven by concerns similar to what we find in poststructuralism. (shrink)

This paper examines some theological reinterpretations of the dogma on the fall and the original condition of man before sin and formulates a proposal that, in accordance with St. Thomas Aquinas’ view, sees in man’s originally holy relationship (original holiness) with God the ‘context’ for the exercise of God’s providential and paternal care for man, which would have protected him from natural evils. It is then shown that the ‘physical-bodily normality’ of the progenitors in such a relational context accords (...) well with both the current scientific understanding of the world and the fundamental theological reasons of dogma. (shrink)

_Naturalism and the Human Condition_ is a compelling account of why naturalism, or the 'scientific world-view' cannot provide a full account of who and what we are as human beings. Drawing on sources including Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and Sartre, Olafson exposes the limits of naturalism and stresses the importance of serious philosophical investigation of human nature.

The Free Market and the Human Condition explores the human condition as situated in the free market from a variety of academic disciplines. By relying upon contributors who approach the topic from their respective disciplines, the book provides an accumulated picture of the free market, the human condition, and the relationship between them.

En el ámbito de la situación presente de crisis de lo humano, así como de la efusión actual del fenómeno místico, esta reflexión se aproxima a la experiencia mística contemporánea a través de uno de sus testigos: Etty Hillesum. El acercamiento a la trama narrativa de su diario hizo posible que el decir del ser, el decir sobre lo humano en la experiencia mística se abriera paso a través de un ejercicio hermenéutico existencial con la mediación del relato. El asunto (...) central consistió en buscar en la experiencia mística la raíz y expresiones de su fuerza humanizadora. En este sentido, a partir de una aproximación a ‘lo humano’ desde las categorías: interioridad, actitud teologal y alteridad, la reflexión abrió el paso a la consideración sobre la experiencia mística y su conexión con ‘lo humano’ que busca humanidad. Asunto éste que hizo posible plantear algunas perspectivas que contribuyan a explicitar el potencial humanizador de la Experiencia Mística hoy. ln the ambit of the present situation of the crisis of the 'human', as well as of the current outpouring of the mystic phenomenon, this reflection approaches contemporary mystical experience by one of its witnesses: Etty Hillesum. The approach to the narrative of her diary made it possible to soy of the "being", which is to say about the human in the mystical experience would open a way through a hermeneutic existential exercise with the mediation of the story. The main issue consisted of searching in the mystical experience, the root and expressions of its humanizing force. In this sense, from an approximation to the 'human' from the categories: interiority, theological attitude and otherness, the reflection opened the way for consideration on the mystical experience and its connection with the 'human' which seeks its humanity. This matter which made it possible to set out some perspectives that contribute to make explicit the humanizing potential of the Mystical Experience today. (shrink)

This article takes issue with procedural reductionism, which is the inclination to reduce all matters of judgement and responsibility to the following of some procedure or rule. Two scenarios provide content for a discussion of professional discretion in the context of accountability. The author shows that in professional life there will always be situations that stand beyond the rules of procedures and require the unique judgement of the professional at the time. While this judgement may be determined by the facts (...) available in a situation of uncertainty, it cannot be reduced to the facts (including facts about rules and procedures). The moral judgement will still have an essential indeterminancy about it. (shrink)

If the instance of human rights cannot ensure the protection of the rightless, as Arendt famously claimed, how can the rightless struggle for freedom and equality? In this essay, I attempt to answer this question by reconsidering Arendt’s influential critique of human rights in light of the two polar responses it evoked from contemporary French philosophers Jacques Rancière and Étienne Balibar. Rancière, who objects to Arendt’s delimiting of the political, finds her argument excluding and dangerous. Balibar, on the (...) other hand, believes that it conveys an immense potential for politics to come, as it points to the dialectical political truth of equaliberty. In the following, I show the problematics of Rancière’s ingenious formulation of rights, and the answer Balibar’s original interpretation of Arendt’s thought might suggest in response. I contend that working through Rancière’s critique of Arendt’s argument and Balibar’s affirmation of it not only highlights the merits of her critical account but also points to the fundamental relation between Arendt’s work on rights and her later discussions of the human condition of non-sovereignty and the power of promises. I believe that such a reading can contribute to our interpretation of Arendt, and pave new routes of action for non-citizens (such as refugees, stateless persons and subjects of military occupation), who cannot employ the authorities’ strength for their protection. (shrink)

Philosophy and the Human Condition brings together essential readings on the crucial philosophical problems related to the human condition and human nature. This collection includes traditional works of Western philosophers from Plato to the present day; relevant extracts from religious texts;and contributions by women, traditions outside of the Western philosophical canon, and other disciplines.

This article argues that xing 性 in the Zhuangzi 莊子 should not be understood as “human nature” but as “human condition.” It introduces the problem of interpreting xing as “human nature” by surveying relevant English-language literature before detailing the interpretive paradigm of Chinese accounts showing how the latter’s appropriation of the language of substance ontology hinders an accurate portrayal of Daoist xing. It argues that xing should be interpreted in connection to the concept of ming 命understood (...) as contingent, natural, and temporal “external conditions”. It argues that xing are “internal conditions” that function in conjunction with ming as “external conditions” where “habit” (xi 習) mediates their interaction. (shrink)

This book explores what science fiction can tell us about the human condition in a technological world, with the ethical dilemmas and consequences that this entails. This book is the result of the joint efforts of scholars and scientists from various disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach sets an example for those who, like us, have been busy assessing the ways in which fictional attempts to fathom the possibilities of science and technology speak to central concerns about what it means (...) to be human in a contemporary world of technology and which ethical dilemmas it brings along. One of the aims of this book is to demonstrate what can be achieved in approaching science fiction as a kind of imaginary laboratory for experimentation, where visions of human (or even post-human) life under various scientific, technological or natural conditions that differ from our own situation can be thought through and commented upon. Although a scholarly work, this book is also designed to be accessible to a general audience that has an interest in science fiction, as well as to a broader academic audience interested in ethical questions. (shrink)

Miss Arendt is more reticent than, perhaps, she should be, about what actually went on in this public realm of the Greeks. —W. H. Auden.

A political philosophy that no longer wants to be a philosophy inevitably runs into contradictions. The productive transparency of Arendt's philosophical experiment becomes visible, however, if we avoid simple mappings to Aristotle, Kant and Heidegger in order to emphasize the point and counterpoint of Arendt's message. The connections she draws, unusual in the world of philosophical thinking, have an obvious and a hidden side. The hidden side can be frequently found in the nuances, and these will be pursued inasmuch as (...) they allow an entirely new reading of Arendt's relationship to practical philosophy. (shrink)

The Anthropocene has become an umbrella term for the disastrous transgression of ecological safety boundaries by human societies. The impact of this new reality is yet to be fully registered by political theorists. In an attempt to recalibrate the categories of political thought, this article brings Hannah Arendt’s framework of The Human Condition into the gravitational pull of the Anthropocene and current knowledge about the Earth System. It elaborates the historical emergence of our capacity to “act in (...) the mode of laboring” during fossil-fueled capitalist modernity, a form of agency relating to our collectively organized laboring processes reminiscent of the capacity of modern sciences to “act into nature” discussed by Arendt. I argue that once read from an energy/ecology-centric perspective, The Human Condition can help us make sense of the Anthropocene predicament, and rethink the modes of collectively organizing the activities of labor, work, and action. (shrink)

Oppression and the Human Condition is both a valuable teaching tool and an insightful addition to scholarship on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Students and teachers will find it an excellent and accessible introduction to Sartre's existentialism, ideal for courses in existentialist and 20th century philosophy. Equally, Sartre scholars will find that the book, especially the sections on oppression and "bad faith," gives them much to think about. Author Thomas Martin applies Sartre's philosophy to contemporary issues and concerns, (...) and draws on two case studies to make his point. The cases examine modern-day oppressors--in one case an anti-semite, in the other a sexist who objectifies women--in the context of Sartre's "bad faith." The case studies also reinforce Martin's argument that Sartre's early philosophy, especially his concept of "bad faith," provides a framework for discussions of oppressions such as racism and sexism. (shrink)

Ethics for School Leaders: The Human Condition and Organizational Dynamics focuses on the ethically complex situations school leaders face and how they balance a complex array of organizational demands, interpersonal dynamics, and ethical concerns to achieve the greater good for their students and for everyone else in the school environment.

Resumen Para Eckhart la transformación del ser humano opera a partir de un progresivo reconocimiento que cada uno hace de su propia condición creatural a la luz de la vida intratrinitaria de Dios. El ser humano necesita liberarse de su constante inseguridad y dependencia de las cosas y de las convenciones sociales. Solo así puede iniciar ese camino de transformación que le permite ir de su condición terrenal, truncada por posesiones, miedos y limitaciones hacia una existencia en Dios plena en (...) el espíritu, en la gratuidad y en la libertad. Este camino conduce a la unión con Dios, pero ésta solo se alcanza a través del desasimiento de las cosas y del ego.For Eckhart the transformation of the human being operates from a progressive recognition that each one makes of his own creature condition in the light of God's intratrinitarian life. Human beings need to be freed from their constant insecurity and dependence on things and social conventions. Only in this way can he initiate that path of transformation which allows him to go from his earthly condition, truncated by possessions, fears and limitations to an existence in God full of the spirit, gratuitousness and freedom. This way leads to union with God, but this is only achieved through the disengagement of things and ego. (shrink)

This study examines the theology of the fourth-century bishop, Hilary of Poitiers, concentrating particularly on two commentaries written at different times in his life. The main focus of the study is on Hilary's anthropological theology.

This article takes issue with procedural reductionism, which is the inclination to reduce all matters of judgement and responsibility to the following of some procedure or rule. Two scenarios provide content for a discussion of professional discretion in the context of accountability. The author shows that in professional life there will always be situations that stand beyond the rules of procedures and require the unique judgement of the professional at the time. While this judgement may be determined by the facts (...) available in a situation of uncertainty, it cannot be reduced to the facts (including facts about rules and procedures). The moral judgement will still have an essential indeterminancy about it. (shrink)

For several decades, renewed interest in the connection between perception and knowledge has sustained a robust debate over external world skepticism. Recently, however, a growing consensus claims the skeptical challenge has been substantially met, and that realism in some robust form has emerged a clear victor. I invite us to rethink this consensus in a two-part response. The first forges a temporary alliance with skepticism against prominent forms of contemporary realism. That these fail to rebuff ews bolsters Barry Stroud’s call (...) for a new paradigm of objectivity. In the second part I sketch such a paradigm based upon a transactional interpretation of John Dewey’s pragmatism, and indicate its resilience to skeptical attacks. (shrink)

Griffith's first book that introduces the reader to the issue of the human condition and his biological explanation of it. It describes how the anger and selfishness felt by humans is the result of a conflict between two factions within ourselves -- the gene-based instinctive self struggling against the nerve-based intellect's need and responsibility to understand existence. The conflict caused humans to live with an undeserved sense of guilt that understanding now ameliorates.

In what is likely to be the final word from one of the most accomplished historians of our time, History and the Human Condition presents John Lukacs's profound reflections on the very nature of history, the role of the historian, the limits of knowledge, and more. Guiding us on a quest for knowledge, Lukacs ranges far and wide over the past two centuries. The pursuit takes us from Alexis de Tocqueville to the atomic bomb, from the American frontier (...) to the Cold War, from Hitler to Heisenberg. As an added bonus, this book features a complete bibliography of Lukacs's writings.Readers of History and the Human Condition will cherish this fascinating work by the man the Washington Times calls "one of the more incisive historians of the twentieth century. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo muestra que La condición humana de Hannah Arendt puede leerse como una disputa soterrada con Martin Heidegger en torno de la praxis aristotélica. Por una parte, se reconstruyen las huellas de la lectura heideggeriana de Aristóteles en la obra de Arendt, para esclarecer esta presencia invisibilizada en la que se cifra uno de los puntos nodales de discusión con quien fuera su maestro. Por otra, se analiza la reconceptualización de la praxis que Arendt lleva a cabo, lo (...) que supone una crítica a la interpretación de Heidegger y el despliegue de un marco conceptual propio que va más allá de la perspectiva aristotélica. ABSTRACT The article shows that Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition can be read as a veiled dispute with Martin Heidegger regarding Aristotelian praxis. On the one hand, it reconstructs the traces in Arendt's work of Heidegger's reading of Aristotle, in order to clarify that invisibilized presence that constitutes one of the key points of the discussion with her mentor. On the other hand, it analyzes Arendt's reconceptualization of praxis, which involves a critique of Heidegger's interpretation and the deployment of her own conceptual framework, which goes beyond the Aristotelian perspective. (shrink)