인간의 조건과 시대적 조망 : 현실 세계의 난제를 생각하며 = A Timely Perspective on the Human Condition: Thinking about the Difficulties Faced with This World

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Hannah Arendt states that Being and Appearing are concurrent in this world. Among the phenomena included are earth and nature, living things, the world, and thought-things. The human condition (earth, life itself, worldliness, and plurality) and the vita activa (labor, work, and action) remain our concerns in this changing world. The Arendtian theory of the human condition has contemporary relevance to understanding our lives.
The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition. It seems that the Arendtian proposition of “earth-boundness” remains the ideal starting point to explain the crisis on earth, which stems from the negative consequences triggered by “the alienation of earth.” In the era of the space race, serious concerns about human earth-boundness are called Amor Terra. Just as earth and nature are both conditions of human life, we have to be interested in how to maintain mere life (zoē) and more life (bios) through activities of labor in the modern age of the consumer economy or, rather, “waste economy.”
The objective world of things created by work (making) is the material base in which human beings can begin action. However, worldliness as a human condition has been constantly impaired or threatened by the intensification of the attitude toward world alienation. The newly emerging emergencies comprise nuclear crisis, environmental crisis, climate crisis, and so on. These things are closely connected with the weakening of the duration and permanence of the world of things and the loss of the publicity of public things. These problems have a high possibility of causing a crisis in political life, that is, humane life. While all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, plurality is the most important element in the expression of humanity. However, the various kinds of political lies, the distorted communication structure, and the excessive jurisdiction of politics are likely to lead to the weakening of political action and politics. The coexistence of the politics of deliberation and agonism contributes to activating the intersubjective web of human relationships, that is, the common world.
In sum, the Arendtian theory of the human condition constitutes a story that reveals care for earth and nature, the permanence of the material base for stable worldly living, and the importance of political life in the common world. The theory of the human condition, in other words, the philosophy of natality, provides us with important insights into understanding our lives.