Arendt’s The Human Condition reshaped Habermas’s social theory around Aristotelian distinctions.

Evidence

In 1961 Habermas became a Privatdozent in Marburg. His inaugural lecture was on `The Classical Doctrine of Politics in Relation to Social Philosophy’. It was no accident that it later formed the opening chapter of his collection of essays, Theory and Practice. Prompted by Hannah Arendt’s 1958 study The Human Condition, Habermas took the Aristotelian distinction between and as a focus for a progressively more precise formulation of his social theory and his clarification of the status of Critical Theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2384

His inaugural lecture was on `The Classical Doctrine of Politics in Relation to Social Philosophy’. It was no accident that it later formed the opening chapter of his collection of essays, Theory and Practice. Prompted by Hannah Arendt’s 1958 study The Human Condition, Habermas took the Aristotelian distinction between and as a focus for a progressively more precise formulation of his social theory and his clarification of the status of Critical Theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2384

Categorization

• XREF: Ties Habermas’s theory of the public sphere back to Arendt’s vita activa distinction, a live thread in critical theory.
• QUESTION: Which specific Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis is being referenced here — and how exactly did it shape Habermas?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2384