Introduction / Margaret Canovan -- I. The Human Condition. 1. Vita Activa and the Human Condition. 2. The Term Vita Activa. 3. Eternity versus Immortality -- II. The Public and the Private Realm. 4. Man: A Social or a Political Animal. 5. The Polis and the Household. 6. The Rise of the Social. 7. The Public Realm: The Common. 8. The Private Realm: Property. 9. The Social and the Private. 10. The Location of Human Activities -- III. Labor. 11. "The Labour of Our Body and the Work of Our Hands" 12. The Thing-Character of the World. 13. Labor and Life. 14. Labor and Fertility. 15. The Privacy of Property and Wealth. 16. The Instruments of Work and the Division of Labor. 17. A Consumers' Society -- IV. Work. 18. The Durability of the World. 19. Reification. 20. Instrumentality and Animal Laborans. 21. Instrumentality and Homo Faber. 22. The Exchange Market. 23. The Permanence of the World and the Work of Art -- V. Action. 24. The Disclosure of the Agent in Speech and Action.

25. The Web of Relationships and the Enacted Stories. 26. The Frailty of Human Affairs. 27. The Greek Solution. 28. Power and the Space of Appearance. 29. Homo Faber and the Space of Appearance. 30. The Labor Movement. 31. The Traditional Substitution of Making for Acting. 32. The Process Character of Action. 33. Irreversibility and the Power To Forgive. 34. Unpredictability and the Power of Promise -- VI. The Vita Activa and the Modern Age. 35. World Alienation. 36. The Discovery of the Archimedean Point. 37. Universal versus Natural Science. 38. The Rise of the Cartesian Doubt. 39. Introspection and the Loss of Common Sense. 40. Thought and the Modern World View. 41. The Reversal of Contemplation and Action. 42. The Reversal within the Vita Activa and the Victory of Homo Faber. 43. The Defeat of Homo Faber and the Principle of Happiness. 44. Life as the Highest Good. 45. The Victory of the Animal Laborans.