New Call for Abstracts: Individual Universalism? Sensus communis, Reflective Judgment and Political Theory in the Thinking of Kant and Arendt.
Call for Abstracts:
Individual Universalism? Sensus communis, Reflective Judgment and Political Theory in the Thinking of Kant and Arendt
HannahArendt.net 15 (2025)
Given the social divisions that characterise our time, Hannah Arendt argues that engaging with individual judgment and exploring the scope for shared perspectives within political discourses is crucial. According to Arendt, the challenge of political thought is to ‘train one’s imagination to go visiting’, i.e. the intersubjective linking of different views that make common perspectives on human action and political events binding without undermining the possibility of individual judgments. According to Arendt, a political theory that takes human particularity as its starting point can only justify the universality of norms on the grounds of a critical engagement that integrates different points of view. Therefore, the principle of integration cannot be determining and claim authority from a neutral point beyond this world.
Arendt develops the possibility of such an individually justified and universally valid freedom from Kant’s concept of sensus communis or common sense as the guiding principle of (aesthetically) reflective judgment. While Kant’s determinative judgment resorts to a general rule (a concept) in order to categorise facts, the reflective judgment conversely searches for general aspects within the given. Thus Kant comprehends a generality without a concept and he appeals to a consensus through ‚Ansinnen‘ or ‚Einstimmung‘ (attunement). Hannah Arendt thus sees reflective judging as an instance of non-coercive consent and individual freedom that is not morally or institutionally biased but results from the act of judging itself. In this sense, Arendt uses sensus communis and non-coercive consent to establish the intersubjectivism that underlies her political thinking. Since freedom for Arendt is essentially based on the fact that people are free beings, i.e., they participate in the world not only as spectators but also as free actors, it must be clarified how a consensus between the two points of view is possible and justifiable.
What is the function of sensus communis in guiding cognition and action? Does exemplary validity solve the problem of its validity? How exactly should one imagine the negotiation processes in an intersubjective and consensus-orientated approach, and which examples can be included? To what extent can common sense help recognise and overcome rifts and divisions, according to Kant and Arendt? How can aesthetic-reflective judgement and common sense be made productive for today’s political theorising?
Please send an abstract up to 500 words to [email protected] by 15 December 2024 to [email protected] or [email protected].
If you are accepted, please send your contribution of 15 to a maximum of 20 pages (1.5 line spacing, font size 12, Times New Roman, justified) for the peer review process by 1 July 2025.