Key Arguments

• Arendt frames an initial reversal in which contemplation is expelled from meaningful human capacities, making the elevation of the maker 'almost a matter of course' after Galileo’s discovery.
• She lists defining traits of the modern mentality: instrumentalization of the world; confidence in tools and productivity; belief that problems reduce to utility; sovereignty over given nature; equating intelligence with ingenuity; and identifying fabrication with action.
• She notes this mentality’s spread: in science (pattern-making replacing harmony/simplicity), in classical economics (productivity as highest standard), and in pragmatist philosophy (utility as key to motivation and behavior), alongside the commonplace that 'man is the measure of all things.'

Source Quotes

If one considers only the events that led into the modern age and reflects solely upon the immediate consequences of Galileo’s discovery, which must have struck the great minds of the seventeenth century with the compelling force of self-evident truth, the reversal of contemplation and fabrication, or rather the elimination of contemplation from the range of meaningful human capacities, is almost a matter of course. It seems equally plausible that this reversal should have elevated , the maker and fabricator, rather than man the actor or man as , to the highest range of human possibilities.

If one considers only the events that led into the modern age and reflects solely upon the immediate consequences of Galileo’s discovery, which must have struck the great minds of the seventeenth century with the compelling force of self-evident truth, the reversal of contemplation and fabrication, or rather the elimination of contemplation from the range of meaningful human capacities, is almost a matter of course. It seems equally plausible that this reversal should have elevated , the maker and fabricator, rather than man the actor or man as , to the highest range of human possibilities. And, indeed, among the outstanding characteristics of the modern age from its beginning to our own time we find the typical attitudes of his instrumentalization of the world, his confidence in tools and in the productivity of the maker of artificial objects; his trust in the all-comprehensive range of the means-end category, his conviction that every issue can be solved and every human motivation reduced to the principle of utility; his sovereignty, which regards everything given as material and thinks of the whole of nature as of “an immense fabric from which we can cut out whatever we want to resew it however we like”; his equation of intelligence with ingenuity, that is, his contempt for all thought which cannot be considered to be “the first step . . . for the fabrication of artificial objects, particularly of tools to make tools, and to vary their fabrication indefinitely”; finally, his matter-of-course identification of fabrication with action.

It seems equally plausible that this reversal should have elevated , the maker and fabricator, rather than man the actor or man as , to the highest range of human possibilities. And, indeed, among the outstanding characteristics of the modern age from its beginning to our own time we find the typical attitudes of his instrumentalization of the world, his confidence in tools and in the productivity of the maker of artificial objects; his trust in the all-comprehensive range of the means-end category, his conviction that every issue can be solved and every human motivation reduced to the principle of utility; his sovereignty, which regards everything given as material and thinks of the whole of nature as of “an immense fabric from which we can cut out whatever we want to resew it however we like”; his equation of intelligence with ingenuity, that is, his contempt for all thought which cannot be considered to be “the first step . . . for the fabrication of artificial objects, particularly of tools to make tools, and to vary their fabrication indefinitely”; finally, his matter-of-course identification of fabrication with action. It would lead us too far afield to follow the ramifications of this mentality, and it is not necessary, for they are easily detected in the natural sciences, where the purely theoretical effort is understood to spring from the desire to create order out of “mere disorder,” the “wild variety of nature,” and where therefore predilection for patterns for things to be produced replaces the older notions of harmony and simplicity.

Key Concepts

• the reversal of contemplation and fabrication, or rather the elimination of contemplation from the range of meaningful human capacities
• the maker and fabricator
• his instrumentalization of the world, his confidence in tools and in the productivity of the maker of artificial objects; his trust in the all-comprehensive range of the means-end category, his conviction that every issue can be solved and every human motivation reduced to the principle of utility
• his sovereignty, which regards everything given as material and thinks of the whole of nature as of “an immense fabric from which we can cut out whatever we want to resew it however we like”
• his equation of intelligence with ingenuity
• finally, his matter-of-course identification of fabrication with action.

Context

Section 43, THE DEFEAT OF Homo Faber AND THE PRINCIPLE OF HAPPINESS (lines 5980–6131); opening diagnosis of the modern reversal elevating homo faber and fabrication-oriented mentality.