The Human Condition

Introduction by Margaret Canovan vii Prologue 1 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 Polis 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 Labor of Our Body and the Work of Our Hands" 79 12. The Thing-Character of the World 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 Consumer's Society 126 IV Work 18. The Durability of the World 136 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