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There are two types of thinking outlined in 'The Human Condition', the 'vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Both are essential to not only the history of thought, in our ongoing dialogue, and confrontation, with it, btu as well stem from that very condition in which humans find themselves. Active thinking is more associated with the West, and that contemplative, the East, but contrary to Kipling, Arendt suggests that these two aspects of human consciousness are consistently, if not constantly, meeting. I have written a good deal on Arendt and used her as a major source in my three volume study of cross-temporal phenomenology. I do think that it should ne noted, for the record, that Heidegger helped Arendt escape, just as he had aided his mentor, Husserl, do the same, and that Heidegger himself dumped his party membership in 1935 and refused the Reich's pressing invitation to become its State philosopher, a position ten taken up by Rosenberg.

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Arendt has been my favourite 20C philosopher since I first encountered her in a seminar my last year at university. I’ve found her to be endlessly useful, especially when explaining the relationship between thinking and acting.

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