The Life of the Mind

by Arendt, Hannah

• ISBN13: 9780156519922
• ISBN10: 0156519925
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1981-04-01
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, and published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.

Author Biography

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was one of the twentieth century's most brilliant and original political thinkers. A prolific essayist and philosopher throughout her life, she studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg under Karl Jaspers. She was University Professor of Political Philosophy in the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research for many years, as well as a Visiting Fellow of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. The Life of the Mind was first published in 1971.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note	p. xiii
Thinking
Introduction	p. 3
Appearance
The world's phenomenal nature	p. 19
(True) being and (mere) appearance: the two-world theory	p. 23
The reversal of the metaphysical hierarchy: the value of the surface	p. 26
Body and soul; soul and mind	p. 30
Appearance and semblance	p. 37
The thinking ego and the self: Kant	p. 40
Reality and the thinking ego: the Cartesian doubt and the sensus communis	p. 45
Science and common sense; Kant's distinction between intellect and reason; truth and meaning	p. 53
Mental Activities in a World of Appearances
Invisibility and withdrawal	p. 69
The intramural warfare between thought and common sense	p. 80
Thinking and doing: the spectator	p. 92
Language and metaphor	p. 98
Metaphor and the ineffable	p. 110
What Makes Us Think?
The pre-philosophic assumptions of Greek philosophy	p. 129
Plato's answer and its echoes	p. 141
The Roman answer	p. 151
The answer of Socrates	p. 166
The two-in-one	p. 179
Where Are We When We Think?
"Tantot je pense et tantot je suis" (Valery): the nowhere	p. 197
The gap between past and future: the nunc stans	p. 202
Postscriptum	p. 213
Notes	p. 217
Willing
Introduction	p. 3
The Philosophers and the Will
Time and mental activities	p. 11
The Will and the modern age	p. 19
The main objections to the Will in post-medieval philosophy	p. 23
The problem of the new	p. 28
The clash between thinking and willing: the tonality of mental activities	p. 34
Hegel's solution: the philosophy of History	p. 39
Quaestio mihi factus sum: The Discovery of the Inner Man
The faculty of choice: proairesis, the forerunner of the Will	p. 55
The Apostle Paul and the impotence of the Will	p. 63
Epictetus and the omnipotence of the Will	p. 73
Augustine, the first philosopher of the Will	p. 84
Will and Intellect
Thomas Aquinas and the primacy of Intellect	p. 113
Duns Scotus and the primacy of the Will	p. 125
Conclusions
German Idealism and the "rainbow-bridge of concepts"	p. 149
Nietzsche's repudiation of the Will	p. 158
Heidegger's Will-not-to-will	p. 172
The abyss of freedom and the novus ordo seclorum	p. 195
Notes	p. 219
Editor's Postface	p. 241
Judging: Excerpts from Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy	p. 255
Indexes	p. 273
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