PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Marx, Gramsci & Arendt
Critically examine Hannah Arendt’s conceptual triad of labour, work and action.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 triad set inside vita activa + the ascending ranking is itself the argument R2 ranking recovers action + freedom from a world fixed on survival /production reordering = both her achievement and the target of critics
Body flow
labour (animal laborans — biological necessity ~ no freedom ~ near-slave) ~ work (homo faber > durable world — partly free → bound to means/ends) — action (zoon politikon + highest + speech + deed ~ discloses who we are) ~ differentia specifica (apart from animals + gods) ~ freedom as natality + plurality (equal yet distinct) action = politics → reverses Plato (contemplation first) + Marx (labour first) ~ politics an end in itself / participatory democracy vs elite rule
Counter-view
Marxist: control of production + homo faber precedes action → labour category too simple (ignores skilled work) → inconsistency: contemplation restored in Eichmann in Jerusalem
Conclusion routes
R1 the ranking is at once her contribution and her vulnerability routes ‘:::.. R2 triad as a diagnosis ~ dominance of labour/work narrows freedom = action is what lets humans live fully
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
