Thinking And Judging: Hannah Arendt's Thought On Philosophy-Politics

In the West, Hannah Arendt and her thought, since The Origins of Totalitarianism was published, is concerned by the students who study the political philosophy; and some scholars claim that in some sense her work guided the research of political philosophy in 20 century, all that show Arendt the importance in the history of political philosophy. From the view of thinking process, the relation between philosophy and politics runs through her whole work. This paper based on thinking and judging, expounds Arendt's thought about it.In the introduction, firstly, the author summarizes Arendt's thinking course as a process from philosophy to politics and returns to philosophy lastly, it shows the relation between philosophy and politics the importance among Arendt's many questions; then, the author introduces briefly the investigation about Arendt; lastly, from the rise of Nazism and Heidegger's affinity with it, the author elucidates the reasons why Arendt concerned with the question. And, the author claims that Arendt has a special view on Heidegger's case, that is to say, the affinity between Heidegger and Nazism is not only the question of Heidegger or the philosophy of Heidegger, but also the question of whole tradition of western philosophy.So, Arendt claimed that the tradition of political philosophy derived from the tradition of western philosophy was a kind of distortion to politics. In the first part, according to Arendt, the author constructs the headstream of western political philosophy and the critique to it, claims that the tradition of western political philosophy is not an authentic political philosophy. The point comes clearly from the critique to Plato, also based on Arendt's special view about politics. Then, the author illuminates it from action, freedom and public realm.Since the tension between philosophy and politics derived from inauthentic political philosophy, the harmony between the both requires a completely new political philosophy; and it requires a new philosophy that is able to deal with justly political phenomena among the real of human affair. In the second part, from the distinction between thaumazein and curiosity, meaning and truth as well as reason and understanding, the author explains that philosophy is a activity pursuing meaning, and its essence is thinking. For philosophy is thinking activity, and anticipating a new political philosophy from it, therefore, it takes for granted that expounds the political meaning of thinking. So, the author discusses Arendt's thought on thinking, and through taking Socrates as a paradigm, the author explains the political meaning of thinking. Simultaneously, the author points out the danger of thinking and its rare political meaning.In this way, facing with the question, Arendt think about another approach, that is human's judgment. In the third part, the author reviews firstly Arendt's two modes of judging, and points out her concept of judging has a process; then, the author indicates the two sources of Arendt's theory of judgment, and shows why Arendt chose Kant as the source finally; lastly, the author discusses the relevance between some concepts among Kant's Critique of Judgment and Arendt's political judgment, and suggests the possibility to harmonize the tension between philosophy.In the epilogue, the author shows that, although the relation between philosophy and politics is central among Arendt's thinking, she did not provided a systematical theory that resolves it, she only indicate a possibility for a whole new political philosophy. In fact, what Arendt displayed is the thought about this question, and her achievement lie in providing the fermenta cognitionis for more thinking.