TWO CONCEPTIONS OF UNDERSTANDING HUMAN ACTION HANNAH ARENDT AND KAROL WOJTYŁA
TWO CONCEPTIONS OF UNDERSTANDING HUMAN ACTION HANNAH ARENDT AND KAROL WOJTYŁA

Summary/Abstract: Hannah Arendt and Karol Wojtyła were two prominent philosophers of thetwentieth century who sought to comprehend man by analyzing his action.Both philosophers referred to the classical tradition, but they focused on dif-ferent aspects of the dynamism of human action. Arendt, by analyzing ac-tion as a practical activity aimed directly at another human being, showed thedynamic dimension of human existence. Wojtyła, through his analyses of anact, attempted to understand the nature of the human person as the subject ofaction. The article demonstrates that these two different and, in many respects,oppositional conceptions of human action in many places complement eachother. The oppositions and complementarity of the two concepts can be seenin Arendt’s and Wojtyła’s approaches to the issues of vita activa and actushumanus, as well as ethics and politics.

• Details
• Contents