Q0402
“What I propose… is nothing more than to think what we are…” — Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition)
Verified English quotation. Primary source: The Human Condition. Theme: action.
English
What I propose… is nothing more than to think what we are doing.
Source and attribution
The archive attributes this English wording to The Human Condition and files it under Political Phenomenology. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.
About Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a German-Jewish political theorist who fled Nazism and wrote in the United States in English and German. A student of Heidegger and Jaspers, she refused the label “philosopher” yet produced lasting works on totalitarianism, revolution, and the vita activa.
Interpretation
Arendt is stating what she takes The Human Condition to be doing, and the modesty is strategic. Her claim is that modern achievements — automation, the conquest of space — have outrun the capacity to say what they mean, so the philosophical task is not to predict or to prescribe but to examine what is already underway. She distinguishes this thinking from both philosophy's traditional subject matter and from political programme. The sentence sets the scale of her ambition deliberately low.
Why it matters
It describes a neglected activity: not deciding what to do, but understanding what doing this has come to mean.
Concepts in this quote
- Action
- Action concerns agency: what it is to do something intentionally, and how thought becomes practice.
- Responsibility
- Responsibility asks what we answer for—our choices, omissions, institutions, and the futures we help create.
How to cite this quotation
APA: Hannah Arendt. (n.d.). What I propose… is nothing more than to think what we are doing. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0402
MLA: Hannah Arendt. “What I propose… is nothing more than to….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0402.
Chicago: Hannah Arendt. “What I propose… is nothing more than to….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0402.
Frequently asked questions
What is the source of the quotation “What I propose… is nothing more than to…”?
The passage is attributed to Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. The archive attributes this English wording to The Human Condition and files it under Political Phenomenology. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.
What does Hannah Arendt mean by action?
Philosophy of action asks how intentions, reasons, habits, and consequences hang together. Ethical traditions often insist that knowing the good is incomplete without doing it. This passage enters that discussion through action, responsibility.