Political Judgment Confronts Ideology

Hannah Arendt’s Contribution

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6357598
AutoresJonathan P Schwartz (0000-0003-2203-9814, University of Wisconsin–Madison, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume50
Fascículo3
Páginas485-511
Data de publicação2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolity (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0032-3497 • E-ISSN: 1744-1684
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/698202
OpenAlexW2803549080
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas18

Commonplace intuitions tell us that possessing judgment is a political virtue, while inflexible ideological thinking is a sort of political vice. Yet this everyday practical dichotomy has no real expression in academic discourse. The closest body of literature involves critical theory’s controversial notion of ideology critique, whose traditional framing is widely considered anti-deliberative and epistemically suspect. In this essay, I reconstruct Hannah Arendt’s account of the relationship between political judgment and ideology, which I suggest aligns closer with commonplace intuitions than any extant literature. Arendt understood ideology as a failure to recognize the distinctive validity of political judgment, a validity which, because of its perspectival character, does not provide objective answers to political questions, although it can assess the quality of such judgments. Ideology represents a politically pathological attempt to inappropriately attribute to one’s judgment the objective validity of truth. Building on recent Arendt-inspired critical theory, I conclude by sketching a version of ideology critique that appeals to intersubjective validity but also affords a vital role for radical social critique

Epistemology · Framing (construction · Ideology · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Virtue · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification