On Hannah Arendt’s conception of judgment with regard to political action: an attempt at reconciling the perspectives of actor and spectator

Abstract

This thesis explores the relation between judgment and action in Arendt’s theory and comprises four main arguments. Firstly, I challenge the argument that there is a shift in Arendt’s theory of judgment from a future-­‐oriented capacity of the actor in her early writings to a backward-­‐looking faculty of the spectator in her late work. I advocate a more continuous reading by showing how the two theories are intertwined throughout her work and present in both phases, early and late. Secondly, I propose a way of understanding the relationship between judgment and action and between prospective and retrospective judgment. I show that we can find in Arendt many different fields of application of judgment that establish this link (i.e. prospective judgment of the actor, retrospective judgment of the spectator, retrospective judgment of the actor, future-­‐oriented retrospective judgment of the spectator, judgment as action, judgment as a precondition for action, anticipated retrospective judgment of the actor). Thirdly, I emphasis the in-­‐between location of judgment with regard to the level of rationality (in between subjectivity and objectivity, in between rationality and emotionality) and I explicate the relation of judgment to facts. Fourthly, I argue that this interpretation of Arendt’s theory of judgment may provide a useful theoretical framework for analysing current political events: it provides concepts that can prove helpful for trying to understand the occurrence of political change, of protest movements and new beginnings for it allows to conceptualize novelty and the consciousness formation processes related to political action.