On Arendt's Reflection Of Modernity Based On The Human Condition

Action, the unique ability to make new beginnings and existing in the plurality of man, together with speech, support the public realm, in which people reveal themselves and through which people pursue their excellence. As far as Arendt's concerned, action,which is different from labor and work, is the only case for activity belonging to human beings and brings freedom and limitless possibilities to the human world and reflects the human nature. However, action also has the weakness that it includes irreversibility,unpredictability and uncontrollability, as a result that action was born with danger of uncertainty. Under the influence of the development of modern science and technology as well as the traditional western political philosophy which rejects action, all human activities were regulated by pursuing the criteria of certainty, uniformity, and stability. The human world was occupied by the craftsman and utilitarian principle, Labor animals and the principle of happiness. Action and public realm were excluded from the human world thoroughly. Finally, life principle conquered all of the above, and modern society fell into crisis. Arendt believed that the root of this crisis was the world alienation and the loss of common sense which were caused by the abolition of action and public realm, and the only way that could solve the crisis of modernity was to restore the ability of action and rebuild the public realm.In The Human Condition, Arendt depicts her action theory and reflection of modernity which is based on the action theory. She regards the contemporary issues from a new perspective, and puts forward a new concept to explain her political philosophy system. Therefore, The Human Condition is regarded as an important publication of western political philosophy in the 20 th century. Of course, the academia is never stingy with their critics for The Human Condition. At the same time, Arendt's action theory has invoked a lot of controversies, especially on the ternary concept of labor, work, action andof public realm, private realm, social realm, as well as the concern on political problems,her restriction on the political field and the utopian vision to solve modern problems.However, it is no doubt that Arendt's ideas and The Human Condition have great value.Firstly, this paper regards The Human Condition as a text-based, and explores Arendt's theory of action with the theoretical analysis method. Secondly, the research in this paper is performed on Arendt's concept of action and public realm thoroughly and significance is revealing that action and the public realm are very important for the existence of the human world. Thirdly, this paper tries to seek for the historical factors through the method of historical analysis combined with theoretical research, and tries to make a summary of contemporary issues of its essence, development phase, pattern of manifestation, the two versions of the traditional and modern and the threat from modernity crisis to human existence. Finally, this paper puts forward a simple suggestion to resolve the crisis of modernity with reference to Arendt's theory of action and the public realm.