Hannah Arendt's Critique of Modemity: The Reversal of Action and Contemplation

Abstract

<p>This study is comprised of an exegesis and critical assessment of Hannah Arendt's account of modernity in the final chapter of The Human Condition. In this crucial chapter, Arendt contends that behind the manifest changes of the modem revolution is a reversal of the traditional relationship between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Particular attention is paid to Arendt's critique of modem science, Cartesian philosophy, and her claim that three axiomatic events stand at the threshold of the modem period and determine its character.</p>