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Human Condition

Guest Post: Some Thoughts on Interest in Arendt’s The Human Condition

A topic that didn’t come up in the discussion of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition at the USIH conference in Dallas was her occasional use of the term “interest” in that book. [1]  Looking at some of the patterns here may lead to new perspectives on her and others’ work. I’m not versed in the deep history of the concept, but I know it figures widely in postwar social sciences, including playing a role in various binary distinctions used to think about such phenomena as human motives, movements and groups, aspects of politics, and historical periods, both past and present, Read more