아렌트의 정치적 판단력 개념과 그 적용에 관한 일고찰 - 아이히만 사례와 관련하여

Abstract

Arendt’s political thinking begins with the critique of the modern world. Arendt describes as the problematic phenomena of the modern world the ‘predominance of the social and the labor’, which results in the ‘disappearance of the political’. She strives theoretically to regenerate ‘the politics’ which is related to the human conditions, such as the plurality and natality of man, the space of appearance, and the capacity of speech and appointment. Focusing on the problem of how to make sense of the political judgment Arendt grounds her own conception of political judgment on Kant’s ‘aesthetic reflective judgment’. especially on Kant’s aesthetic concept of ‘sensus communis’. Arendt’s theoretical interest in Kant is interrelated with the practical interest in Eichmann case that she describes as the banality of evil. She analyzes that the ‘thinklessness and incapacity for judgment’ bring about the political catastrophes. Eichmann trial presents above all the antinomy of political judgment, especially the conflict between freedom and history that can be easily used to justify the wrongful actions under totalitarianism. While the subjective freedom can be restricted by historical contexts, Arendt claims that this antinomy can be solved with the concepts of ‘order of mankind’, ‘sensus communis’, and the ‘capacity of political judgment’. In spite of some inconsistency Arendt strives to combine politics with humanity in the medium of human capacity of judgment. This conception as whole can have the influence on the political thinking of our own day.