In The Human Condition, which is probably her most frequently commented upon book, Hannah Arendt rejects the traditional subordination of praxis to theory. Such a step amounts to – and Arendt is quite explicit about it – radical criticism of the whole tradition of Western political thought. With what Arendt wants to replace the traditional hierarchical relationship – or what should be the relation between philosophy and politics according to Arendt – is far less clear.
Arendt’s position has been interpreted as a reversal of the traditional hierarchy between theory and praxis or as an attempt to radically disentangle the two activities. Such interpretations strike me as extremely implausible. For one thing, Arendt explicitly states that she does not want to reverse the traditional hierarchy, but rather to abolish it. The underlying concern of vita activa is according to her neither superior, nor inferior but simply different from the concern of vita contemplativa (HC, 17) and neither of the two ways of life can therefore be subordinated to the other. This claim is by no means isolated within the context of HC or Arendt’s work as a whole.
Arendt consistently stresses the fundamental differences between thinking and acting and, especially in The Life of the Mind, seems to be suggesting that the two activities belong to utterly different spheres. Thinking is a solitary activity while acting is possible only among others; thinking is concerned with universals while acting deals with particulars.
