ABSTRACT

Arendt has two paradigms of judgment. She may link judgment to the spectator who, observing life's arena, makes valid judgments. Within the other paradigm it is the involved participant who must judge, for to remain in retreat on the spectators bench is to evade the world's demands - to refuse the very being of the world. When consciousness becomes the plural conversation of thinking it does the work of conscience. The discussion runs closely parallel to Gilbert Ryle's. That 'God-given' voice becomes as natural to us as breathing, being musical or humorous. Thinking, and the love of it, is not confined to the highly intelligent. Arendt uses Jaspers's idea of 'boundary conditions': When everybody is swept away unthinkingly by what everybody else does and believes in, those who think are drawn out of hiding because their refusal to join in is conspicuous and thereby becomes a kind of action.