ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses that current strains of democratic theory, with self-ascribed roots in Arendt's application to political judgement of the Kantian concept of enlarged thought, have neglected the importance of judging from the perspective of the world in their conception of a healthy political sphere. The enlarged mentality is contrasted in turn with the politics of consensus, public morality, agonism, and empathy. Jurgen Habermas retains the universalizability of Arendtian communicability as the groundwork for his communicative conception of politics. The enlarged mentality is frequently aligned with Nietzschean perspectivism to place emphasis on its agonistic tendencies. Sheer intensity of feeling, the bonds of victimhood, and the experience of struggle, can arouse a perverse envy amongst those whose subsistence and identity are relatively secure. Too much empathy risks an excess of emotional solidarity that shields us from facts. Passion will always be part of reason, but passion itself must not be the object of politics.
