The Understanding Of Action

Arendt's stress on action is aimed at the neglect of vita active as well as the fascination with vita contemplative, which prevailed in the history of western philosophy. Although labour and wok are also necessary conditions for human being to live in this world, it is through action that man finally gets his opportunity to show who he is. According to Arendt, the natality, plurality, community and worldliness constitute the existential basis of action, while the bravery, promise and forgiveness are the virtuous basis. On the other hand, action is exhibited in public sphere and take the form of the initiating act and the self-showing talk. Furthermore, while action has no aim other than itself, the estimation of it is established in the narration of onlookers, and the only rule through which action could be estimated is to look whether it is lofty.In her later work named The Life of Mind, Arendt tried to find out the relation between the action and the human mental activities such as thinking and judging. Arendt's understanding of the conception of thinking and action is very different from that of the former philosophers who regarded thinking as much more important than action. For Arendt , both thinking and action are based on the same human condition such as plurality, community and so on. She insists that thinking and action play the different roles in human life, but thinking has to show itself through the action of the actor, while the actor has to think and judge to make action possible. Consequently, we should regard Arendt's exploration of the life of mind as the cultivation instead of the renunciation of the theory of action.