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<p>Hannah Arendt's theory of political judgment has been an ongoing perplexity among
scholars who have written on her. As a result, her theory of judgment is often treated
as a suggestive but unfinished aspect of her thought. Drawing on a wider array of
sources than is commonly utilized, I argue that her theory of political judgment was
in fact the heart of her work. Arendt's project, in other words, centered around
reestablishing the possibility of political judgment in a modern world that historically
has progressively undermined it. In the dissertation, I systematically develop an
account of Arendt's fundamentally political and non-sovereign notion of judgment.
We discover that individual judgment is not arbitrary, and that even in the complex
circumstances of the modern world there are valid structures of judgment which can
be developed and dependably relied upon. The result of this work articulates a theory
of practical reason which is highly compelling: it provides orientation for human
agency which does not rob it of its free and spontaneous character; shows how we can
improve and cultivate our political judgment; and points the way toward the profoundly
intersubjective form of political philosophy Arendt ultimately hoped to develop.</p>
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