Modern Reflection On The Interpretation Of Hannah Arendt’s "the Human Condition"

Hannah Arendt was one of greatest political thinker of the twentieth century, the individual experiences made her thoughts always immediate response to the current problems. What she tried to accomplish in "The Human Condition " is to investigate the existing predicament of mankind from the latest era experiences and our closest fears, and reconsidered the ideal human condition. As Heidegger’ student, Arendt cleared Heidegger’s thought, while deeply influenced by his thinking.The distinction she made between action, work and labor as well as the public and private realm was inspired by Heidegger’ deconstruction theory. In "The Human Condition", Arendt distincted three confused fundamental human activities:labor, work and action. She diagnosed the modern society with the aid of the ancient Greece experiences, and thought that the reversal of the condition of modern people is the root of modern crisis. Hannah Arendt proposed a "situation" exists, and made a systematic exposition on the situation of human survival characteristics. Through her careful distinction of action, work and labor, she revealed the different human existence with corresponding to these three activities. And the crisis of modern society was caused by the vicissitude of the situation of the human existence.This article divides into five parts. The chapter one introduces Arendt’s source of ideas and the social background of her life. Arendt experienced a lot of suffering, reflections on the age constituted the starting point of her thought. As Heidegger and Jaspers’student, existentialism is the source of her thought.Chapter two discusses from those three aspects:three basic conditions of people, basic human activities and the emerging space of activities. Life is given to us under certain circumstances, Arendt stressed nature, world and plurality those three aspects, the corresponding activities are work, labor and action. Each activity has its place of occurrence, Arendt further confirmed the two areas of human activities:the public realm and the private realm. Each activity should be restricted in their realm, the human condition is the explanation of conditions and limit of human activities.Chapter three analyzes the changes of the human condition which caused by modern alienation, the labor advancement and the rise of social. Modernization process caused double alienation:"world alienation" and "earth alienation". Labor becomes the highest-level activity, and economic interests turns into the highest pursuit. With the rise of social, the public realm declined. The result brought about by the modernization process was the comprehensive change of the human condition, and it brought about the crisis of modern society.Chapter four elaborates the specific performance of modern crisis, including consumerism, political crisis and human crisis. In Arendt’s opinion, the modern twentieth century lead to the demise of the original public realm, on the other hand, the new order has not been established, human live in a hope and fear coexist conditions. From this, Arendt thought modern crisis prompt us to face the condition of human existence, think what we are doing, so that to find the crux of the problem.The last chapter analyzes the value and limitation of Arendt’s modern reflections. Arendt reflected modern crisis on the basis of the human condition, stressed the importance of action and reflection on solving the contemporary issues. It is significance for us to understand and overcome modern crisis. But it also must be recognized that her reflection of modernity has certain limitations.