To choose one’s company: Arendt,Kant,and the Political Sixth Sense

Abstract

This essay explores the phenomenon of common sense through a contextual analysis of Hannah Arendt’s political application of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. I begin by tracing the development of Arendt’s thinking on judgment and common sense during the 1950s which led her to turn to the third Critique. I then consider the justification of her move by examining the philosophical context and political applications of the third Critique, arguing that within it Kant made an original and profound discovery: that the phenomenon of common sense contains a hidden faculty that may anchor moral and political judgments. I conclude by arguing that Arendt was on firmer ground than is often thought in adapting Kantian common sense to politics, a fact that may afford new possibilities for the practice of moral and political thought.