Everyday Life: Philosophical Roots and Proposals for an Interdisciplinary Debate

Author: María Pía Chirinos
Year: 2009 (Universidad de Piura; "Feminist Research Methods" workshop, Stockholm)
Source type: article/conference paper
Raw file: raw/articles/everyday-life-philosophical-roots.md

Summary

Chirinos asks why Western philosophy has neglected everyday life and proposes a positive, anthropological notion of it. She traces philosophy's neglect to Greek aristocratic humanism (Plato and Aristotle's subordination of the household/oikia and labor to the public/political "good life"; the otium/negotium split), reinforced in Arendt's contrast of animal laborans and homo faber, and reconfigured in modernity by the Protestant ethic (Weber) and Cartesian technical reason (the homo faber becoming homo oeconomicus). Against this, she grounds everyday life in dependence, embodied need, and vulnerability (MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals), and links it to work and practices as the activities in which everyday life is lived.

Key Claims

• Philosophy's aristocratic-humanist neglect: in Plato and Aristotle, excellence belongs to the polis; the oikia (household) is the sphere of women, slaves, and animals meeting bodily needs — "private life implies privation." The otium/negotium, liberal/servile arts, and vita contemplativa/activa oppositions devalue everyday life and labor.
• Arendt: animal laborans vs. homo faber: labor ("the daily fight ... to keep the world clean and to prevent its decay") is tied to bodily need and "bears little resemblance to heroic deeds"; work (homo faber) builds the durable human world. Arendt fears "we live in a consumerist and hedonist society" in which labor has invaded all spheres. Dominique Méda's "disenchanting" of labor continues this line.
• Modernity and the Protestant ethic: via Weber, Luther's "inner-worldly" asceticism and Calvin's predestination make worldly labor and prosperity signs of salvation — shaping "men of iron" adapted to capitalism. Descartes and Bacon replace otium with technical control of nature ("knowledge is power"); the homo faber becomes homo oeconomicus. Bodily need and everyday life remain secondary.
• A positive proposal — dependence: the agent of everyday life is the ordinary person as a dependent, embodied, vulnerable rational animal (MacIntyre). "We human become 'independent practical reasoners' because we first of all are dependent and needy rational animals." Vulnerability and belonging are not deficits but the basis of care, empathy (Edith Stein), and community.
• Work and practices: following MacIntyre, virtues are acquired in practices ("forms of systematic human activity, each with its own goods internal to it"); Chirinos proposes work as "the point and function of a practice." Everyday life is non-univocal, varied by the practice one lives, and includes domestic/practical work ("making and sustaining of family life").

Connections

Concepts: Everyday Life · Everyday Architecture · Dwelling
Authors: María Pía Chirinos
Debates: (theory of the everyday)
Related source notes: The Politics and Potential of Everyday Life (Colebrook) · The Invention of Everyday Life (Felski)

Direct Quotes

"[A] human existence where leisure, heroic actions and excellent life are at the center" marginalizes everyday life and labor. (on Arendt/Méda)

"[T]he question of human limits ... finally rests upon our attitude toward our biological existence, the life of the body in this world." (Wendell Berry, as quoted)

"We human become 'independent practical reasoners' because we first of all are dependent and needy rational animals." (paraphrasing MacIntyre)

"[W]e can propose work as the point and function of a practice."

Open Questions

• Does an Aristotelian/MacIntyrean grounding in "practice and work" offer a positive everyday-life philosophy, or does it reintroduce theological/aristocratic assumptions the everyday critique wanted to escape?