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Abstract

In The Human Condition, published in 1958, Hannah Arendt makes an important distinction between the "human condition" and the "human nature". Out of this phenomenological analysis, Arendt tried to circumscribe the limits of the "human nature" and to respond to positivist theoreticians who considered possible to know the essence of the biological human nature. For Arendt, human action, unlike the events that occur in nature, consists of a characteristic very specific of freedom. As a result, a correct understanding of the phenomenon of human condition is not possible through the biological dimension, since human action cannot be properly explained by the forces that act in the external world. This shows that the naturalistic analysis is insufficient and cannot deal properly with the phenomenon of human freedom.  On the other hand, though Hans Jonas did not treat completely this problem in his The Principle of Responsibility, he offers a hard criticism of the Marxist project inspired in Arendt's notions (in chapters five and six), targeting the notion of homo laborens, as one of the manifestations of the "human condition".

Keywords:

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Human condition

Marxism

Human nature

Freedom

Subjectivity

Technica

Condição humana

marxismo

natureza humana

liberdade

subjetiva

técnica

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