Body of action in Hannah Arendt: a rereading of The Human Condition

Abstract

The objective of the article is to reconstruct the concept of body in The Human Condition, articulating it specifically with the notion of action. As a fundamental premise, it is assumed that Arendt distances herself from the extensive body, that is, she does not believe in the existence of a unity –material and unquestionable– common to the entire human species. In other words, the body is not defined by vital needs, nor by instincts, which Arendt considers inappropriate to explain human behavior. Explanations from zoology or biology are insufficient to understand political upheavals, wars or revolutions. The human body is conditioned by the historical and political moment and that is precisely what makes it human: its unpredictable capacity for action. It is possibly for this reason that, in The Human Condition, Arendt does not speak of the body in isolation as if it were an unalterable object, but always associate it with the activities of the vita activa, evidencing a marked differentiation between the biological body of the work and the body of action, which is plural, and therefore particular.