On Arendt's Theory Of Active Life

In this day and age,hedonism and consumerism prevail.Modern people do not pay attention to other things except material comforts and survival needs,no longer yearn for active life,public life is excluded from their life vision,The principle of life itself becomes the only criterion that determines People's Daily behavior,the problem of alienation has become a contemporary examination question in front of modern people.Arendt made a profound analysis and reflection on the alienation situation faced by modern people,used historical analysis to find the root cause of this phenomenon,and sought a way out to solve this dilemma,and embarked on the road of exploring active life.Arendt's theory of positive life has an important enlightening function for modern people to return to their true selves,which is conducive to awakening citizens' political consciousness,Arendt's advocacy of positive life helps to awaken citizens' political consciousness,enhance their enthusiasm to participate in and discuss politics,and enhance their political responsibility to pay attention to public lifeThis paper mainly discusses Arendt's theory of positive life from five partsThe first part discusses Arendt's deep reflection and criticism on active life from the perspective of traditional political philosophy.On the one hand,the traditional political philosophy prioritizes the contemplative life over the active life,which serves the contemplative life.The pluralistic democracy is replaced by the autocratic rule,and the masses of the people become the tools and means of the rulers.On the other hand,the action view of active life from the perspective of traditional political philosophy contains violence,which habitually interprets action as production,and the attempt to replace action with production is anti-freedom and anti-democracy,even contradicting the real experience of politics.Therefore,the traditional political philosophy of the understanding of positive life into the error.The second part introduces Arendt's terms and conditions of active life.In the undistorted political experience,the active life should recognize the fact of the plural and diversity of human beings.Influenced by his teacher Heidegger's philosophical theory,Arendt made an ontological analysis and investigation of the structure of positive life,and divided the conditions of positive life into three types:labor,production and action.Each of these,in Arendt's view,is essential to being human.If one wants to live an active life,he must rise above the narrow private sphere of labor and production and enter the public sphere of action.According to Arendt,actions are not only different from labor activities that satisfy daily behaviors with natural metabolism,but also different from production activities that follow the complicated chain of cause and effect of ends and means.The essence of action is free activity,action is also a kind of political activity,it is the basis of man.The meaning and value of man's freedom and existence are manifested by actions in the highest sense of active lifeThe third part discusses the manifestation and reason of the crisis of active life analyzed by Arendt.Arendt believes that people have been caught in the embarrassing situation of not knowing what "active life" is.They have been integrated with the life process of the whole species,and they have neglected their individuality and political freedom in the orderly society,thus leading to the outbreak of active life crisis.Arendt used the method of historical analysis to dig into the root causes of the crisis to find out the causes of the crisis.At the same time,he borrowed the word alienation and called the phenomenon of alienation in which people indulge in the satisfaction of survival desire and ignore their own political life "world alienation".The fourth part analyzes the way to solve the crisis proposed by Arendt,that is,how to live a positive life.She drew a strict distinction between the private and the public spheres.The private sphere is a sphere or place of necessity,The public sphere,on the contrary,is a free space and a political place.The relationship between people is completely equal.It is a field of speech and action between plural subjects.With the development of the current era,the boundary between the private and public spheres is gradually blurred,and the social sphere begins to flourish,which means that the private sphere enters the stage of the public world,which will lead to more people not being free.It is because of the mutual trespass and confusion between fields that the crisis of the legitimacy of positive life appears.In Arendt's opinion,only the public and private two areas,with the positive life of three types of activities and the areas have a clear understanding of its subordinate,thereby preventing positive life crisis broke out,the only stick to the public domain,improve the enthusiasm of political participation,the side of the self,to become an active lifeThe fifth part analyzes and comments on the significance and limitations of Arendt's theory of positive life.Throughout Arendt's theory of positive life,it has not only theoretical value but also practical significance.On the one hand,the traditional political philosophy does not explain the positive life reasonably,which is tantamount to deviating from the original connotation of the positive life.On the other hand,Arendt's theory of positive life gives us a new perspective and method to look at and solve the current social problems,which has certain reference value for the construction of a happy positive life.This paper also points out the shortcomings of Arendt's theory of positive life.