The Concept of Action in Hannah Arendt

The argument that Action is an activity inherent to politics was defended by the thinker Hannah Arendt in her book The Human Condition (1958). In line with this study, we investigated the author’s criticism of the concept of Work and her analysis of the concept of Work. The investigation covered the concepts of vita activa, vita contemplativa and contemplation, Action and its characteristics, Labor and Work, always with the aim of showing the main perceptions regarding Action as a criterion for political activity among men. The central philosophical problem is reflecting on action as a political activity par excellence, in other words: ＂thinking about what we are doing?＂. Thus, the challenge here is to extract from this problem, which permeates the scope of the three categories of vita activa (Labor, Work and Action), a contribution to also thinking about what we, as political beings, do with our society. This study of Action deals with what is most characteristic of Hannah Arendt’s entire political oeuvre: Action as the driving force behind political life.