Key Arguments

• The impact of worldly reality is received as conditioning force; conditioning and objectivity supplement each other.
• Human existence requires things; absent their conditioning, things would be a non-world—mere unrelated articles.

Source Quotes

Whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition. The impact of the world’s reality upon human existence is felt and received as a conditioning force. The objectivity of the world—its object- or thing-character—and the human condition supplement each other; because human existence is conditioned existence, it would be impossible without things, and things would be a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world, if they were not the conditioners of human existence.

The impact of the world’s reality upon human existence is felt and received as a conditioning force. The objectivity of the world—its object- or thing-character—and the human condition supplement each other; because human existence is conditioned existence, it would be impossible without things, and things would be a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world, if they were not the conditioners of human existence. To avoid misunderstanding: the human condition is not the same as human nature, and the sum total of human activities and capabilities which correspond to the human condition does not constitute anything like human nature.

Key Concepts

• The impact of the world’s reality upon human existence is felt and received as a conditioning force.
• The objectivity of the world—its object- or thing-character—and the human condition supplement each other;
• because human existence is conditioned existence, it would be impossible without things, and things would be a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world, if they were not the conditioners of human existence.

Context

I Vita Activa AND THE HUMAN CONDITION (lines 435–507): Clarifying the co-dependence between worldly objectivity and conditioned human existence.