Human Action: Characteristics, Reason, and Work

**Human Action: Features, Reason, and Societal Impact**

**Features of Human Action**

Human action is characterized by intelligence and the ability to imagine, organize, and realize desires, projects, plans, and illusions. It allows us to transcend the realm of necessity and recreate new worlds. Our actions always represent a symbolic character, hence the creative nature arises.

**Key Traits of Human Action**

• Intentionality: Aristotle understood intentionality as the way a subject acts, moving into the world as an external reality. According to him, there are two modes of directing oneself toward an object: the theoretical, which expresses the human will, and the practical, designed to meet human needs.
• Purpose: Means are defined for a purpose, presenting an action. Reaching the necessary means and choosing to carry them out is practical. The means are our tools.
• Flexibility: A common purpose can be achieved through different means. Action is open: neither the purpose nor the means are predetermined. One can innovate.

**Practical Reason**

Knowing and acting are inextricably linked. One does not know first and then act afterward, but rather the opposite. Reason has several uses. Kant distinguished between a reason that knows (theoretical reason), a reason that guides action (practical reason), and a reason that also deals with the practice of beautiful actions (aesthetic reason). These distinctions were already present in Aristotle, who differentiated in practice between technical intent or production of items and moral action. We can identify these uses in practical reason: instrumental reason, morality and politics, and aesthetics.

**Work: From Contemplation to Action**

Work is not just any other activity. The way to work is the action by which man seeks what he needs. Greek philosophy conceived the human being as homo sapiens, a being who knows and longs to see the truth. When someone was forced to do an action, they led a subservient life; these were the defeated enemies. The Greeks differentiated two types of life:

1. Private: It is up to conform to the necessities of life and must remain hidden.
2. Public: Relates to human affairs, it is the only one worthy of being lived. It is a contemplative life without idealization of work. This ideal in the Greek world was reinforced in the medieval Christian world.

**Traits of the Human Being as Worker**

According to Hannah Arendt, the human being as a worker has these features:

1. Violence toward nature: Homo faber works on a separate ground for his site.
2. Governed by a model: Work is governed by a model that guides the manufacture, precedes the work process, and persists after it.
3. Designer and inventor: Homo faber's activity turns human beings into designers and inventors.
4. Remuneration: The employee receives remuneration, a salary. This is a key element in defining work.

**Work in the Industrial Society**

The Industrial Revolution brought about six key changes:

1. New work environment: A new work environment emerged, with factories multiplying activities and levels.
2. Different time distribution: Time distribution was organized differently, governed by the sun and the factory siren.
3. Urbanization: Production was located in cities, creating urban planning.
4. New type of property: A new type of property appeared, different from the traditional one based on land: stocks and bonds. With them, the capitalist bourgeois emerged.
5. Birth of the proletariat: The proletariat was born.
6. Women's liberation: Women began to be linked to the production process, thus beginning their liberation.

**Technique and Technology**

Technique is "a skill through which a natural reality is transformed into an artificial reality," in the words of Ortega y Gasset. Technique and technology are often used as synonyms, although a distinction can be made between them. The term "technique" is reserved for artisanal techniques, and "technology" for scientific or industrial techniques. All technology is technical, but not every technique is technology.

**The Philosophy of Technology**

The philosophy of technology is a reflection on technical issues and their effects on society. It wonders about the nature, value, and social consequences of the technological phenomenon. Ortega y Gasset believed that human beings are created by themselves, that they are a project, and that technique helps them create it.