ABSTRACT

This chapter considers Hannah Arendt's magisterial discussion of the vita activa in The Human Condition at this point in the author's study for a number of reasons. Firstly, since it is obvious that the Cartesian anthropological model was a decisive influence upon the development of modern hermeneutics, it seemed important to assess the subject of anthropology without regarding it as a concern that began with Kant and Schleiermacher. However, to understand how Arendt can maintain that a political study can constitute a credible engagement with the problems of this advance of Cartesian introspection - a belief which encapsulates the range of differences that run between her study and Gadamer's - one must look carefully at how the terms by which she understands politics relate to basic hermeneutic issues. The first activity of man is that of labour, which corresponds to the biological process of the human body, and relates to man's life as an animal on earth.