Human Condition - Universalmuseum Joanneum

17 Scholem, Letter 64
(23rd June 1963), p. 98.
18 Arendt, Ich will verstehen,
p. 35.
19 Cf. Arendt, Vom Leben
des Geistes, p. 14f.
about the object, but imagining it in its pluralistic manifestations and then asking:
What would my judgment be now?
This exercise in thinking, taking in different points of view, Kant calls “operation of
reflection,” the first step of which is to “teach your imagination to go visiting.” Arendt
again links this with the figure of the blind poet (Homer), who is not directly affected by
an action because his eyes are unseeing. This capacity for distancing and re­presentation
(where the imagination is in charge) brings us within a reasonable distance of the
object. It creates the conditions for a relative impartiality without our becoming insensitive
– because what is represented or reflected still affects me, arousing plea sure or
aversion, only on another, mediated and not directly inevitable level.
In a further step, the operation of reflection utilises Kant's principles of enlightened
thinking: 1. to think for oneself (unprejudiced thinking), 2. putting oneself in the position
of everyone else (expanded thinking), and 3. thinking in agreement with oneself (i.e. not
contradicting oneself, being consistent). Now what does putting oneself in the position
of everyone else mean? It cannot mean of course either thinking for other people or
knowing exactly what other people feel or feeling in their place, feeling what they feel. In
this sense, empathy does not come to bear, as Arendt stresses very clearly.
It is more the case that I understand where the other person is coming from, and that
that is a different part of the world from mine, where things look different. What
it means is being able to adopt a different perspective on the world. In this context,
independent thought is still required. How I would think and judge in that position?
Without that possibility, I would have to consider any other judgment from anyone correct,
or rather, out of reach of my judgment and therefore correct. The consequence would
be that there is basically nothing in common that we could judge and argue about so
splendidly. There would no longer be any sensus communis, i.e. consensus – the thing I
expect from others when I put forward my judgment (according to Kant). Says Arendt,
we would no longer have a world in common (in the sense of a web of references), which
is created only through shared communication about this world, and is constantly being
created afresh and dynamically changing. Instead, we would all be firmly cooped up in
our own sensus privatus (private perception, or logical idiosyncracy), which would rapidly
lapse into rampant ideo­logical idiosyncracy that no longer allows any other views to
intrude. Kant diagnoses this as a symptom of madness.
That is why Arendt finds it so important to emphasise that such judgment, which at
least tries to put itself in the position of others, is essential if we are to shoulder “care
for the world” together with others. In this sense, she also responds to Gershom Scholem
(who said of the Eichmann controversy: “I do not presume to judge. I was not there.”):17
“And if you are perhaps right that there cannot yet be a ‘balanced judgement,’ though
I doubt it, I believe that we will only be able to come to terms with this past when we
begin to judge, and do so forcefully.”18 Thus for Arendt it is not a matter of the ultimate
validity of the decision or the fear of making incorrect judgments but of holding fast
to the judgment process. For her, not judging any more is far more dangerous. And not
only because judgment is necessary for reconciliation, so that punishment or forgiveness
may follow. Arendt diagnosed the inability to think and judge for oneself as coincidental
with (or perhaps first apparent in) the rise of totalitarianism and the simul taneous
collapse of the old system of values. The Eichmann phenomenon, according to Arendt,
was characterized mainly by the incapacity or switching off (or at any rate, non­use) of
personal powers of judgment.19
Emancipation, which takes place therefore in the process of understanding and judging,
is emancipation from being shut up in one’s own viewpoint and self­liberation towards
the shared world. This mutuality is not absolute or monolithic, tantamount to an