The Life Of The Mind

Arendt opens with the question that is the foundation inquiry for this section: “What makes us think?” In Part 3 and Part 4, Arendt traces the history of how professional thinkers conceptualized Will and applies a genealogical approach to her study. She explains that thinking emerged with humanity. Humans experience a need and urgency to express their thoughts through language. Greek philosophers believed that the more time people could spend in thinking, the more divine they became. Philosophizing became synonymous with piety, and Being was given primacy over appearance. The Greeks called philosophy the achievement of immortality.

Both the Greeks and Christians championed immortality—this was the goal for all disciplines, including philosophy. Arendt argues that this stands in opposition of plurality: It creates too much of a separation between the spectator and the actor. If each person’s focus is on divine immortality, then they are centered entirely on the individual self.

Arendt cites a quote from Plato multiple times throughout the work, and at the beginning of Chapter 15 she claims that this quote is the answer to the question, “What makes us think?” Plato identified wonder as the origin of philosophy.