Hannah Arendt’s Unwritten Chapter on Judging

Hannah Arendt’s claim that she brings Immanuel Kant’s unwritten political philosophy to fruition is controversial. For one, it is inconsistent with Kant’s thought, as he separates aesthetic and political judgments. Moreover, Arendt’s appropriation of reflective judgment conflicts with her sharp distinction between the public and private realms. Whereas reflective judgment is a reflective ability, political judgment is a public ability.

This book justifies Arendt’s claim that reflective judgment has political potential – while remaining consistent with Kant’s aesthetics and Arendt’s politics. By developing an Arendtian phenomenology of privacy, I offer a new reading of her public-private distinction. I uncover non-privacy as the space of withdrawal where the life of the mind unfolds.

What is more, I show that reflective activities constitute the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the emergence of the public realm. Reflective judgment is one of these activities. For Arendt attributes to enlarged mentality the public communicability of political judgments. Enlarged mentality thus gives persons the ability to insert themselves into the world. Therefore, Arendt is right to locate political potential in reflective judgment.