Homo Faber

Definition

Homo faber (the fabricating human) is Hannah Arendt's term for the human being as maker of durable objects. Unlike animal laborans (the laboring animal) who is bound to cyclical biological processes, homo faber creates a stable world of things meant to outlast individual lives. "Work provides an 'artificial' world of things, distinctly different from all natural surroundings." Homo faber is characterized by instrumental rationality—the use of means to achieve ends—but this instrumentality becomes problematic when applied to human affairs (treating people as means rather than ends).

Key Thinkers

• arendt-hannah — developed the concept in The Human Condition (1958); distinguished homo faber from animal laborans
• bergson-henri — used the term in Creative Evolution (1907); Arendt's usage is distinct but related

Related Concepts

• animal-laborans — the laboring animal; bound to biological necessity; distinct from homo faber
• vita-activa — homo faber's work is one of the three activities of the vita activa
• dwelling — the world created by homo faber is the condition for dwelling
• bergson-henri — used the term in Creative Evolution (1907); Arendt's usage is distinct but related
• (Work, action, world, instrumentality are mentioned in the source but not yet separate pages — see log.md.)

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss homo faber:

• arendt-1958-the-human-condition — "Work is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence, which is not imbedded in, and whose mortality is not compensated by, the species' ever-recurring life cycle." (p. 7)

Open Questions

• How does homo faber relate to contemporary digital fabrication and parametric design?
• Is architecture primarily the work of homo faber, or can it enable action?
• What is the relationship between homo faber and the architect as "author"?