I. The Human Condition
1. Vita Activa and the Human Condition
7
2. The Term Vita Activa
12
3. Eternity versus Immortality
17
II. The Public and the Private Realm
4. Man: A Social or a Political Animal
22
5. The Polls and the Household
28
6. The Rise of the Social
38
7. The Public Realm: The Common
50
8. The Private Realm: Property
58
9. The Social and the Private
68
10. The Location of Human Activities
73
III. Labor
11. "The Labour of Our Body and the Work of Our Hands"
79
12. The Thing-Character of the WorId
93
13. Labor and Life
96
14. Labor and Fertility
101
15. The Privacy of Property and Wealth
109
16. The Instruments of Work and the Division of Labor
118
17. A Consumers' Society
126
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Table of Contents
IV. Work
18. The Durability of the World
13 6
19. Reification 139
20. Instrumentality and Animal Laborans
144
21. Instrumentality and Homo Faber
153
22. The Exchange Market
159
23. The Permanence of the World and the Work of Art
167
V. Action
24. The Disclosure of the Agent in Speech and Action
175
25. The Web of Relationships and the Enacted Stories
181
26. The Frailty of Human Affairs
188
27. The Greek Solution
192
28. Power and the Space of Appearance
199
29. Homo Faber and the Space of Appearance
207
30. The Labor Movement
212
31. The Traditional Substitution of Making for Acting
220
32. The Process Character of Action
230
33. Irreversibility and the Power To Forgive
236
34. Unpredictability and the Power of Promise
243
VI. The Vita Activa and the Modern Age
35. World Alienation
248
36. The Discovery of the Archimedean Point
257
37. Universal versus Natural Science
268
38. The Rise of the Cartesian Doubt
273
39. Introspection and the Loss of Common Sense
280
40. Thought and the Modern World View
285
41. The Reversal of Contemplation and Action
289
42. The Reversal within the Vita Activa and the Victory of
Homo Faber
294
43. The Defeat of Homo Faber and the Principle of Happiness
305
44. Life as the Highest Good
313
45. The Victory of the Animal Laborans
320
Acknowledgments 327
Index 329
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