Hannah Arendt's critique of the sciences was primarily concerned with their role in modernity, their impact on human affairs, and their epistemological assumptions. Her concerns revolved around several key themes:

1. Alienation and the Loss of the Common World

• Arendt argued that the rise of modern science contributed to a profound alienation from the world. By adopting a perspective that abstracts away from human experience—such as through mathematical models, technological mediation, and a quest for objective truth—science distances people from their lived reality.

• She was particularly critical of how science, especially since the 17th century, replaced common sense and shared human experience with specialized knowledge inaccessible to the public.

2. The Rise of Instrumental Reason

• In The Human Condition, Arendt analyzed how science became deeply entangled with technological progress and instrumental rationality, prioritizing utility over ethical or political considerations.

• She worried that scientific progress, especially in physics and engineering, was increasingly directed toward technical mastery (e.g., nuclear weapons, automation) rather than understanding or human flourishing.

3. The Displacement of Action by Labor and Work

• Arendt distinguished between labor (biological necessity), work (fabrication), and action (political engagement in the public realm). She saw the modern scientific enterprise as contributing to the dominance of labor and work at the expense of action.

• Science, by focusing on problem-solving and technical mastery, risked reducing politics to technocracy, undermining public debate and political action.

4. The "View from Nowhere" and the Loss of Human Judgment

• She was critical of modern science's ambition to adopt an Archimedean point—a perspective outside of human affairs from which to observe and manipulate reality.

• This aspiration, she thought, led to the dissolution of traditional humanist modes of knowledge (e.g., philosophy, history, political judgment) in favor of abstract models that lacked direct engagement with reality as it is experienced by human beings.

5. Totalitarianism and the Dangers of Scientific Ideology

• In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt showed how scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas were used to justify domination and extermination, particularly in Nazi and Soviet ideologies.

• She was skeptical of how science, when paired with ideology, could be used to justify inhuman policies under the guise of "rationality" (e.g., racial science, eugenics, or Stalinist economic planning).

6. The Unleashing of Unpredictable Forces

• Arendt saw modern science as having unleashed forces that could no longer be controlled by human judgment, particularly in the fields of nuclear physics and genetic engineering.

• She feared that scientists, detached from ethical responsibility, might create technologies that fundamentally alter or even destroy the human condition.

Key Example: The Space Age

In The Human Condition, she used the example of space exploration to illustrate her concerns. She saw the escape from Earth as emblematic of modern science's tendency to alienate humans from their condition, moving them away from a world of shared experience into an artificial, technologically mediated existence.

Arendt’s Alternative: A Return to Politics and Judgment

She did not reject science outright but insisted that it must be situated within human affairs, governed by political judgment rather than unchecked progress. For Arendt, the solution was to reaffirm the primacy of public debate, ethics, and human responsibility over scientific and technological imperatives.