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More Truth Than Fact: Storytelling as Critical Understanding in the Writings of HannahArendtAuthor(s): Lisa J. DischSource: Political Theory, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 665-694Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192078 .

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MORE TRUTH THAN FACT

Storytelling as Critical Understanding

in the Writings of Hannah Arendt

LISAJ. DISCH

Universityof Minnesota

My assumptions that hought tself arisesout of incidentsof livingexperienceandmust

remainboundto themas the only guidepostsby which to take its bearngs.

-Hannah Arendt'

A well-craftedstoryshares with the most eleganttheoriesthe ability to

bringa version of the world to light that so transforms he way people see

thatit seems never to have been otherwise.Undercertainconditions,astorycan be a morepowerfulcritical force thana theoreticalanalysis.In a society

where the abstractionof social theoryandsocial science sometimes masks

realconflicts, a skillful narrative anbringto lighttheassumptionsburied n

apparentlyneutralarguments ndchallengethem.Storytelling nvitescritical

engagement between a reader and a text and, more important,among the

various readersof a work in a way that the impersonal,authoritative ocial

science "voice from nowhere"cannot.

This essay tells a story that HannahArendt did not tell because she

considered it inappropriateo do so. It concerns themethodological nnova-tions she made-but would not call attention o-while writingabout total-

itarianism.Early on, she claims that "historyhas known no story more

difficult to tell" than that of the concentrationcamps.2The camps and the

regime that producedthem "cannot be comprehended hroughthe usual

categories of political thought"or "judgedby traditionalmoral standards r

punishedwithin the legal frameworkof our civilization."3 n sum, Arendt

AUTHOR'SNOTE:I wouldlike to thankBenjaminBarber,TracyStrong,SusanBickford,andDana Chabotfor their commentson this work at varous stages. Researchfunds from the

GraduateSchoolof the Universityof Minnesotaprovidedsummer upportforits composition.

POLITICALHEORY,ol.21 No.4,November993 665-694? 1993SagePublications,nc.

665



666 POLITICALTHEORY November 1993

argues that totalitarianism was not just a moral crisis but an unprecedented

"problem of understanding."4That

problemof

understandingis to find a

wayto make a spontaneous but principled response to the phenomenon of total

domination. In the absence of the traditional categories and standards that

ordinarily serve as "guideposts" to critical thought, she argues that such a

response must take its bearings from the "personal experience" of the

thinker.5Storytelling is the term she uses to describe critical understanding

from experience.6What Hannah Arendt called "my old fashioned storytelling"7 is at once

the most elusive and the most provocative aspect of her political philosophy.

The apologies she sometimes made for it are well known, but few scholarshave attempted to discern from these "scattered remarks" a statement of

epistemology or method.8Though Arendt alluded to its importance through-

out her writings in comments like the one that prefaces this essay, this

offhandedness left an importantquestion about storytelling unanswered: how

can thought that is "bound" to experience as its only "guidepost" possibly be

critical? I discern an answer to this question in Arendt's conception of

storytelling, which implicitly redefines conventional understandings of ob-

jectivity and impartiality.Arendt failed to explain what she herself termed a "rather unusual ap-

proach"9to political theory because she considered methodological discus-

sions to be self-indulgent and irrelevant to real political problems.?1 This

reticence did her a disservice because by failing to explain how storytelling

creates a vantage point that is both critical and experiential she left herself

open to charges of subjectivism.1 As RichardBernstein has argued, however,

what makes Hannah Arendt distinctive is that she is neither a subjectivist nor

a foundationalist but, rather, attempts to move "beyond objectivism and

relativism."12I argue that Arendt's apologies for her storytelling were disingenuous; she

regarded it not as an anachronistic or nostalgic way of thinking but as an

innovative approach to critical understanding. Arendt's storytelling proposes

an alternative to the model of impartiality defined as detached reasoning. In

Arendt's terms, impartiality involves telling oneself the story of an event or

situation from the plurality of perspectives that constitute it as a public

phenomenon. This critical vantage point, not from outside but from within a

plurality of contesting standpoints, is what I term "situated impartiality."

Situated impartial knowledge is neither objective and disinterested nor

explicitly identified with a single particularistic interest. Consequently, its

validity does not turnon what Donna Haraway calls the "god trick,"the claim

to an omnipotent, disembodied vision that is capable of "seeing everything

from nowhere."'3 But neither does it turnon a claim to insight premised on



Disch / STORYTELLING N ARENDT'SWRITINGS 667

the experienceof subjugation,whichpurportedly ives oppressedpeoples a

privilegedunderstandingf structures f dominationandexonerates hem of

using power to oppress.The two versionsof standpointclaims-the privi-

leged claim todisembodiedvision andthe embodiedclaimto"antiprivilege"from oppression-are equallysuspectbecausethey aresimply antithetical.

Both define knowledgepositionally,in terms of proximityto power; theydiffer only in thatthey assign the privilegeof "objective"understandingo

oppositepolesof theknowledge/poweraxis.Harawayargues hatstandpointclaims are insufficientas criticaltheorybecausethey ignorethecomplexof

social relationsthat mediatethe connection betweenknowledgeandpower.

She counters that any claim to knowledge, whether advancedby the op-pressed or theiroppressors, s partial.No one can justifiably lay claim to

abstract ruth,Harawayargues,but only to "embodiedobjectivity,"which

sheargues"meansquitesimplysituatedknowledges."'4 here s aconnection

between Arendt'sdefense of storytellingandHaraway'sproject, n thatboth

define theoryas a criticalenterprisewhosepurpose s notto defendabstract

principlesorobjectivefacts but to tell provocativestories thatinvite contes-

tation from rivalperspectives.'5Theeffortto definesocialandpoliticaltheoryas a kind of knowledgethat

is neitherperfectlyobjectivenorwholly subordinate o interest s, of course,notnew.'6Itaccordswith whatTracyStrongargues s distinctivetopolitical

theory,that its validityturnsnot on fact but on "truthfulness,"he"capacityto strike humansat all points."'7Andit is hardlyunorthodox o suggestthat

HannahArendtmakes animportant,f largely unrecognized,contribution o

this debate.BothErnstVollrathand David LubanarguethatArendt'sstory-

telling is an attackon objectivity.Arendt'sstorytelling,they claim, follows

from heraccount of the "conditions" f politics, "plurality"n particular.

Pluralitynamesthe conditionof humanmultiplicity, nterconnectedness,andperspectivaldifferentiation hat s, according o Arendt, he sinequanon

of public life.'8Vollratharguesthat it is because of interconnectednesshat

storytellingmusttake theplaceof abstractanalysis;no politicalthinkercan

claim to step outsidethe "webof humanrelationships"'9hatArendtclaims

constitutes hepublicrealmwithoutviolating he"phenomenal ature s well

as thepoliticalstatusof political phenomena."20ubanconcurswith Vollrath

thatstorytelling s a wayto understand ubliclife fromwithinit,arguing hat

Arendt's"methodsrequirea styleof 'attentiveness o reality' hat s more the

mark of a political actor than a scholar."21He adds that storytellingalsofollows fromperspectivaldifferentiation,which precludesobjectiveanaly-sis, because in politics "theobjectivestate of affairs s radicallydecentered:

it offers us no Archimedeanpoint from which it can be comprehendedbecause every point is Archimedean."22 s Luban and Vollrathsuggest,




totalitarianismmighthaveprovokedArendt's urn ostorytelling,butsituated

criticism s notunique othestudyof thatphenomenon;ather,otalitarianismaccentuates he featuresof politics thatrequire he politicaltheoristto be a

storyteller.This essay explicates the conception of criticalthinkingfrom personal

experience that is implicit in Arendt's remarkson storytelling.I chart its

development rom the earliestpublicationswhere, n spiteof her distastefor

polemic, her writingis quite polemical. Next, I look at herdiscussions of

methodology n the researchoutlines and memoranda he composed while

writing Origins. In these unpublishedwritings,she begins to justify the

difference between her storytelling and simple polemic. I then treat theexchangebetweenVoegelinand Arendt hatoccurredafter hepublicationof

Origins. It is only when she is attackedby social scientists for her use of

metaphoras a substitute or empiricalresearch23ndby humanists or her

partiality24hatArendtattempts o explicateher method.She argues for a

redefinition f validitythatwas to beachievednotbyabstract, eutralwritingbutby storytelling rom a committedmoralperspective. n the final section

of the essay, I reconsiderthe lectures on judgment where storytelling is

centralto the conceptionof spontaneouscriticalthinking hat she developsin herlectureson Kant's"enlargedhinking."UnderstandingArendt'sstory-

telling, then,is criticalto makingsenseof herappropriationf Kant'sThird

Critique.Beforeturning o Arendt'swork,I addressbrieflysome criticisms

thatmightbe raisedby the identificationof storytellingwith criticalunder-

standing.

STORYTELLINGAS CRITICALTHINKING?

Storytelling s nota termthatArendttreatsas a conceptto be definedor

thatsheemploysconsistently hroughout erwritings.By stories,she means

everything romthe casualanecdotes oldbyfriendsoverdinnerorbyparentstochildren, onovelsandshortstories, o thenarrativesndessayssheherself

wrotefor The New Yorker ndCommentary.ngeneral,storytellingsignalsher resistanceagainstthedictatethat the politicalthinkermust withdraw o

a vantagepointbeyondthe social worldin order o understandts relations

ofpower

andadjudicate ts conflictsof interest.She argues hat theWestern

political traditionwas constrained rom the outsetby this "Archimedean"

conceptionof politicalphilosophy,whichoriginatedwith Plato'sabandon-

mentof politicsbecauseof hisdisgustandangerat theexecutionof Socrates.

Plato's theory of the forms opened an "abyss between philosophy and




politics"that left that traditionwithouttheconceptualandethical resources

to understandtotalitarianism and resist it.25

Storytelling isthe

wayArendt proposes to bridge this abyss and to dispel the pretense of the

Archimedean vantagepoint.The belief thatphilosophycan and shouldbe separated rompolitics is

fostered, in part,by the style of philosophicalwriting,accordingto Arendt.

Principles that appeartimeless and universal when couched in abstract

arguments eally beganasparticular xperiences,so "no matterhow abstract

our theoriesmay soundor how consistentourargumentsmay appear, here

are incidents and storiesbehind them which,at least for ourselves, contain

as in a nutshell the full meaningof whateverwe have to say."26 torytellingboth situates our theories in the experiences from which they came and

engages anaudience n a differentkindof criticalthinking han anargumentdoes. A storycan representa dilemma ascontingentandunprecedented nd

position itsaudienceto thinkfrom within thatdilemma.It invites thekindof

situated critical thinking that is necessary when we are called upon, in

Arendt'swords,to think "withoutbanisters."27

In the contextof the Westernpolitical tradition, t is strangeto describe

critical thinkingas storytellingwithoutbanisters, hat s, without"categoriesandformulas .. whose basisof [sic] experiencehaslongbeenforgottenand

whoseplausibilityresidesintheir ntellectualconsistencyrather han ntheir

adequacyto actualevents."28Much of that traditionhas always taken it for

granted hatconceptual hought s theprincipalweaponagainst heprejudicescarried by "old fashioned" stories. It is even strangerstill to associate

storytellingwith discontinuity, o arguethatthe time to tell stories is when

the past has "lost its authority," iven the belief that storiespreserveconti-

nuity, transmitting radition from one generationto the next.29Alasdair

Maclntyre,for example, identifies storieswithtradition,writingthat"thereis no way to give us an understanding f any society, includingour own,

except throughthe stock of stories which constitute its initial dramatic

resources."30trangest f all is theclaim thatstories nvitecontestationwhen,in a traditionalsociety, storytelling is a consensus-buildingpractice that

serves to hand down "a commonunderstandingf themeaningandpurposeof human ife."31Contraryo theseassumptions,Arendtargues hat twas the

very abstractionof moralcategories thatmade it possible for the Nazis to

supplantthe familiarguidepostsof moral life with "languagerules."These

ruleskeptNazi functionaries romequating he crimesmadelegal under hatregime"with heirold, 'normal'knowledgeof murder nd lies."32Undersuch

conditions,when "thoughtandrealityhavepartedcompany,"one must tell

stories to bring to light the incongruity between reality and the abstract

concepts we hold.33



670 POLITICALTHEORY November1993

In The Fragilityof Goodness, MarthaNussbaumexplains how stories

work asa

critiqueof Archimedean

thinking.34Nussbaum contrasts the

abstract, ule-governedmodelof criticalunderstandingn rationalistphilos-

ophy with the particularistmethod of tragedy.She arguesthat where ratio-

nalistphilosophyaimsto rule out irreconcilable thicalconflictby rendering"allvalues commensurablen termsof asinglecoin"(p.58), tragedypresents

unique situations in which the choice is among values that cannot be

calibrated gainstacommonstandard f measure.Tragicdramas, heclaims,teach a "horizontaldrawingof connections,"so that one reflects on an

incident"byburrowing owninto thedepthsof theparticular,inding mages

and connectionsthat will permitus to see it more truly,describe it morerichly" (p. 69). If tragic dramasteach us to thinkhorizontally,rationalist

philosophy teaches us to think vertically,to constructethical problems in

termsof "pre-articulated"ules(p. 14).These two modesof critical hinking-one spontaneousandhorizontal, he other"pre-articulated"nd vertical-

bothrequireanaltogetherdifferentway of tellingstories.TheArchimedean

thinkers notreally engaged nstorytellingbutinillustration,reatingastoryas "a schematicphilosophicalexample"of anabstractprinciple. ncontrast,

the tragicstorytraces"thehistoryof acomplexpatternof deliberation" nd

so "lays opento view thecomplexity, heindeterminacy,he sheerdifficulty

of actualhumandeliberation"p. 14).Tragicstorytelling ervesnotto settle

questionsbut to unsettlethemand to inspirespontaneous riticalthinking n

its audience.

The implicitclaim of Arendt'searliestwritingsandfinal workon judg-

mentechoesNussbaum'sargumenthatstorytellingbothexhortsandteaches

spontaneouscriticalthinking.LikeNussbaum,Arendtarguesthatwhenthe

salient featureof a dilemma is that it cannot be understood n terms of

"pre-articulated"ules,it is best

representedby tellinga

story.Archimedean

thinkingis inadequate o the challengeof an unprecedentedvent because

suchan eventcannotbe understoodntermsof familiar ategories.Todiscern

thesalientfeaturesof aphenomenoniketotalitarianism,ne mustbeginnot

withcategoriesbutwith stories.

POLEMICORSTORYTELLING?

In theearlyessays,Arendtargues hat otalitarianisms acriminalregime

so unprecedentedhat it precipitatesnot simply a crisis of moralitybut a

"problemof understanding"ecauseit is incomprehensiblen termsof the

existing conceptualcategoriesof the Westernpoliticaltradition.35s Luban



Disch / STORYTELLINGN ARENDT'S WRITINGS 671

puts it, Arendt udgedtotalitarianismo be a moraland,moreimportant,an

"epistemological"crisis.36She defines this

"epistemological"crisis as the

problemof understandingwhen "we are confrontedwith somethingwhich

has destroyedourcategoriesof thoughtand standards f judgment."37She begins to lay out thisproblemof understandingn a veryearlybook

review of The BlackBook, a denunciationof the Nazis that came out soon

after the war. Arendt criticizes the book for purporting o be a " 'bill of

indictment' " against the Nazis.38The book fails to persuade preciselybecausethe authors akeit as their mission to resurrect ruthandjustice and

attemptto do so by statingtrue facts to displace Nazi falsehoods. Arendt

arguesthatthis strategy s naive.Without hetotalpowerto fabricate"afalsereality accordingto a lying ideology, [the]propaganda ndpublicityof the

style embodiedin this book can only succeed in makinga truestorysound

unconvincing."39What its authorsdo notunderstand,ccording o Arendt, s

that the Nazis have called into questionthe belief that truthcan vanquish

power.The problemis thatin the wakeof a politicalregime that exercised

power by means of the fabricationof realityit must be acknowledgedthat

"truth" an be a constructof power.As she remarks n a letter to David

Riesman at about the same time, "Truthmay disappearfrom the human

community f we do not want t;afterall, we canalso lie and-to a verylargeextent-we can make our lies stick. This is a question of power."40To

propagandizeon behalf of the "truth" s if true stories simply compel our

assent is to miss the pointof what the Nazis accomplished.The Nazis did

more than lie. They stirredpeople to act withoutthinkingby constructinga

false storythatcompelled assent.The answeris not to oppose truthagainstfalsehood because both truthand falsehood "stick" quallywell. Instead, he

challengethatArendtsees for herself and otherswho analyzethatphenom-

enon is to craft the story of totalitarianismn a way that does not compelassent but,rather, tirspeople to thinkaboutwhatthey aredoing.41In letters that she wrote about this time to Mary Underwood,editor at

Houghton Mifflin for her book on totalitarianism,Arendtconsiders the

problemof understandingn relation to herown projecton totalitarianism.

Arendtcomplainsto Underwood hatshe is having difficulty formulatingan

outline of the project because she is unsurehow to write the history of

totalitarianismas a critiqueof thatphenomenon.In one draftmemo, she

writes that "the coherence of this book[,] which is essentially a book

against[,]shouldnotbe the coherenceof continuity."42he dilemma,as shepresents t in anotherdraftmemo,is thathersubjectmattercalls for a historywrittenagainstwhat she calls "theinherent aw of all historiographywhich

is preservationandjustificationandpraise."She wants "topresent ts result

in such a way thatit serves the oppositeandintrinsicallyunhistoricpurpose




of destruction."43rendtclaimsthatotherhistorians aced withthiskindof

task haveengagedin "polemicalwriting"but that this"ispermittedonly aslongas the author anfall backuponafirmgroundof traditional alueswhich

areacceptedwithoutquestioningand on whichjudgmentscan be formed."44

Because she believes thattotalitarianismakes this groundout from under

her,she concludes, "I, therefore,had to avaid [sic] carefullythe polemical

style, much as I was tempted by it, because polemical attitudes today

degenrate sic] intocynism [sic] or superficial riteness."45 olemic is, then,a kindof Archimedean hinking hatrelieson a "pre-articulated"ormative

frameworkand functionsnot to initiatediscussionbut to settle it. Arendt's

objectionto TheBlackBookwas that it was a polemicaboutthe veryeventthatrulesoutpolemicalwriting,preciselyby shatteringhe ethicalcertainties

to whichpolemic needs to refer.

Although she rules out polemical writing, Arendt is not calling for

detached,morallyneutral ocialscience. Onthecontrary,n anessayentitled

"SocialScienceTechniquesand theStudyof ConcentrationCamps,"Arendt

claims that totalitarianisms an epistemologicalcrisis as muchfor positivescienceas it is for moralphilosophy.Theessayopenswith the dramatic laim

that"everyscience is necessarilybasedupona few inarticulate, lementaryand axiomatic assumptionswhich are exposed and exploded only when

confrontedwithaltogetherunexpectedphenomenawhich can no longerbe

understoodwithin the frameworkof its categories."46he claims that the

campsexplodethepresupposition f falsifiabilitythatguarantees hepossi-

bility of objectivity in the social sciences. The camps are organized in

accordancewith an "inflexible logic," characteristicof paranoia,"where

everythingfollows with absolutenecessityonce the first insanepremise is

accepted."47What makestotalitarianism total" s precisely its capacity to

"fabricate"eality, hat s, theknowledgethat t is

possibleto takea

particularhypothesisand"in the courseof consistentlyguidedaction,[ensure hat] he

particular ypothesiswill becometrue,will becomeactual, actual,reality."48

This capacity to fabricatereality puts the totalitarian ystem beyond the

"objectivenecessitiesconceived as the ingredientsof realityitself."49 ech-

niques of positive social science are discreditedwhen confrontedwith a

powerthatcanmakefactsin theimageof its own hypotheses.Theepistemo-

logicalcrisisof totalitarianism,hen, sprecipitated ythecapacity o"make"

reality,whichrendersobjectivitymeaningless.

The ethical crisis of totalitarianism s engenderedby the systematicdismantlingof "theindividual" hrough he concentration ampsystem. In

contrast to the murder,which is a crime against a distinct person, the

destructionof "theindividual"s anunprecedentedrimeagainsthumanity

itself. Westernethics is premised on the assumptionof an autonomous



Disch / STORYTELLINGN ARENDT'SWRITINGS 673

individual hat s responsible or itsactionsand denticalwith itself over time.

Arendtargues

thatdeportation

to a concentrationcamp

dismantles this

premise by systematicallyviolatingthe threeconditions on whichindividu-

ality depends-legality, publicity, and natality.First, legal individuality,which is definedin termsof actionandintent, s renderedmeaninglessbyan

arbitrary rrest hat "stands n no connectionwhatsoeverwith the actions or

opinions of the person."50 econd, identity over time, which depends on

publicity, s ruptured y deportation,which effects the totaldisappearance f

the personfromhis or herplace in the world.By secretingthe campsfrom

public view anddiscouraging nquiriesaboutthem, the Nazis ensured that

neighborsnever knew where a deporteehadgone or even whetherhe or shehaddied;"itis as if he [sic] haddisappearedrom the surfaceof theearth."5'

Third, he institutionalization f experimentalorturedestroysnatality,which

makes spontaneoushuman action possible, by creatingan environment n

which individualsarereduced"to the lowest possibledenominator f 'iden-

tical reactions.'"52The crimeperpetratedby the totalitarian egime is un-

precedentedbecause arbitrary rrest,disappearancerom public view, and

routinized orture ffect a fundamentalransformation f humannature.The

concentrationcamp is more than a site for mass murder: ts mechanisms

functionnotsimply to kill peoplebutto negatetheirhumanity.Thecontroversialpartof thisarguments thatArendtdenies thathumanity

is a distinct qualityor propertythat is somehow essentially in all human

beings;on the contrary, t is a capacitythatdependson public spacefor its

possibility of existence. The campsare "the mageof hell" becausetheyare

the antithesis of the democratic deal of "public space"thatshe defends in

The Human Condition. Where the public space is constitutedby political

equality,the concentrationcampconstitutes a "monstrous quality"of un-

differentiatedbeings "withoutfraternityor humanity."53raternityand hu-manityarelost because, without a public space, humanplurality-which is

the condition of fraternity ndindividuality-has no place to appear.This essay is almost never mentioned in studies of Arendt's political

thoughtand with good reason.54 t is not tightly argued,and its critiqueof

positivist social science is incomplete.Evenworse,Arendtdefends the claim

that totalitarianism s a crime againsthumanindividualityas if everyonewould understandwhatshe meansby terms like "natality"and"publicity."

Althoughtheseterms are criticalto her claimthatmassmurder s notsimply

analogousto murderbut constitutesa genuinely unprecedented rime, shewill not define them until almost ten years later when she publishes The

HumanCondition.

Consequently,the essay is probablyless importantfor its clarity and

persuasiveness hanfor itsremarkable rescience.In it,Arendtdemonstrates




the storytelling echniquesthat are innovativeeven now.In describingthe

concentration amps,Arendtsets aside theliteralidiom of social science fortheresonant"voice of poetry."55he styleof a moreconventionalargumentwould be at crosspurposeswith Arendt'ssubstantive heme: that totalitari-

anismis incomprehensiblenconventional erms.Metaphor, xymoron,and

hyperbolepermither to expressthis claim in an idiomthatmatches it. She

categorizesthecamps throughoxymoron,calling them "exterminationac-

tories," or "death factories" for the "fabrication of corpses."56The incongru-

ity in the juxtapositionof opposites-production and annihilation-calls

attention o the fact that thephenomenonbeingdescribedviolates common

sense. This languagedramatizes he insanityof thecamps."Factories" hatexist to "produce"death are absurditymade real. This language further

refutes heanalogy o mass murder.Wheremassmurdersonlyquantitatively

unprecedented,hesystematicdismantling f individualitybytheproductionof corpses-dead and alive-is incomprehensiblen termsof existing cate-

goriesof crime.

If oxymoronframesthis analysis,moralhyperbolepunctuateshe statis-

tical andhistoricalevidence thatconstitutes he bodyof the argument.The

campsarethe "imageof hell" whereinmatesexist in "monstrous quality."

The Nazis' crime is notjust wicked but "deformedwickedness,"and the

victimizationof the Jews is "deformed .. innocence."57ikethe incongru-

ous languageof the categories,the hyperbolein herjudgmentsaboutthe

evidence worksto illustrateArendt'spointthatthisevent cannotbe under-

stoodin termsof traditionalategories ikeguiltand nnocence.Butalthough

she intendsthe literarydevices she employs to dramatizeher belief that

totalitarianisms incomprehensible,heeffect is thattheearlyessays have a

moralizingand polemical tone, in spite of Arendt'scritiqueof polemical

writing.Whethershe states it or not, theremust be some meaningfuldistinction

between what she took herself to be doing and the style for which she

criticized workslike TheBlack Book.Thereis a clue to her methodin the

factthat hejuxtaposes xplicitlyudgmentalwriting ndempirical vidence,as

if theresonantdiomof literature nd theliteral diomof social science were

perfectly compatible.Seyla Benhabibexplains Arendt'stechniquebeauti-

fully: "Themoralresonanceof one's languagedoes notprimarilyreside in

theexplicit value udgmentswhichan authormaypasson thesubjectmatter;

rather uchresonancemustbe anaspectof thenarrativetself. Thelanguagemust match the moralquality of the narratedobject."58Thus the implicit

distinctionbetweenstorytellingand polemic is analogousto thatbetween

literature ndpulpfiction;wherethe lattercapitalizeson shockvalueforthe

sake of titillation, he formerattunes ts style to the substanceof its vision.




Itsimplicitcomplexity notwithstanding, ecauseArendtdoes notexplainthe

underlying ogic of this approachuntil much later(in herresponseto EricVoegelin'scritiqueof Origins),these earliestwritingsappearmoredogmaticthan innovative.

This examinationof the early essays andunpublishedmemos shows that

Arendt'sclaim that totalitarianism oses a problemof understandings not

just an analytic argumentbut also a practicaldilemma that she encountered

in the course of trying to tell the story. In response to that problem of

understanding, he experimentswith a kind of storytelling, using literarydevices to presentheranalysisin affective terms.Butin theseearlywritings,

Arendtmerelyidentifiestheproblemof totalitarianismndexperimentswithstorytelling techniques as a response. She neither refers to her work as

storytelling nor attemptsto defend storytellingas a response either to the

epistemic crisis of totalitarianismor to the conditions of politics more

generally. I turn now to Origins to begin to discern Arendt's defense of

storytellingas criticaltheory.

STORYTELLINGSNEW"OBJECTIVITY"

It is curious that the methodologicaldilemmas of the early essays never

make theirwayintoprint,despitetheirconnection o Arendt'sprincipal hesis

thattotalitarianism recipitatesanepistemicbreakdown. t turnsout thatone

of the most interestingaccounts of herstorytelling s an untoldstoryabout

thechangefromthe workingtitle of the totalitarianism rojectto Origins ofTotalitarianism,he title underwhichit was published n the United States.

This storycan be inferredfrom the discrepanciesbetween the unpublished

outlinesand memos toMaryUnderwood nd thepublisheditle andpreface.59In the memos toUnderwood,Arendtcomplainsof thedifficultyof writing

a historythatdoes not celebrate ts subjectmatterorpresent t as a necessaryoutcome of anevolutionaryprocess.The title sheproposes s consistent with

the methodologicaldilemmas she spells out. The workingtitle, "The Ele-

ments of Shame:Antisemitism-Imperialism-Racism," namesthemethod

of the book, which is to be an analysis of the "elements"of totalitarianism

for which anti-Semitism s the"amalgamator."60Elements"makes the break

with historicalnarratives hatchart he continuousevolutionof aneventfrom

its causes. "Amalgamation" uggests that totalitarianism ccurred from a

coincidence of elements that are not necessarilyor causally connected but

whose intersection s not simply random.Together hese termsgive Arendt

a vocabularyfor contingency.Finally,the use of the explicitly judgmental




"shame" uggeststhatcontingentevents,unlikethose thatareeitherrandom

ornecessary,

demandanexercise of criticaludgment.The title thatactuallymakes it to pressis inconsistentwiththe method-

ological imperativesshe lays out in the memos to Underwood.Both "ele-

ments"and "shame"disappear n the switch from the workingtitle to its

publishedversion;they arereplacedwith the more conventional"origins."

"Origins"s a temporal onceptthat mpliesanevolutionarynarrative bout

causally relatedevents.This changeredefines the workitself. Where "Ele-

mentsof Shame"announcesa studythat violates the conventionsof social

science to explaina contingentevent that is incomprehensiblewithin that

framework,"Origins" uggestsa causalanalysisthatappears o follow thoseconventions.6'

Similarly, n the brief referencesto methodologythat she makes in the

preface,Arendtsuppressesthe uncertainty he revealedin the Underwood

memos.In thepublishedversion,Arendt rames heproblemof contingencyas the problemof comprehending n event like totalitarianism. he asserts

thatcomprehension an neithermeanexplanation n termsof generallaws

nor fatalist acceptance. Instead, it entails a critical posture, achieved bymeans of "the unpremeditated, ttentive facing up to, and resisting of,

reality-whatever it may be or mighthave been."62 resumably, he term

"unpremeditated"s an allusionto her earlierargument hat totalitarianism

is an unprecedentedphenomenon hat shattersall priorconceptualframe-

works.But becauseArendtonly alludesto the vivid accountshemade n the

social scienceessay,andbecauseherfor-publication oice is so authoritative,

theprefaceactuallyservesto undermineherthesisthattotalitarianism osesa problemof understanding.Wherethe uncertaintyof Arendt'stone in the

Underwoodmemosmakesherclaimthat otalitarianisms anepistemiccrisis

all the moreplausible,

herfor-publication

voice soundspolemical

and

idiosyncratic.63The prefaceis even moreconfusingbecauseArendtretainssome of the

physics languagefromthe earlierversionbutmixes it with theevolutionary

metaphor. f anything, hephysicslanguage s moreemphatic n thisversion.

Anti-Semitism s no longerthe"amalgamator"utnowthe"catalyticagent"of NationalSocialism, the war,and genocide.64And totalitarianisms the

"finalcrystallizingcatastrophe"hatbringsthe "elementsand origins"of

totalitarianismnto theopen.65Butthis sentence s theproblem.Arendtwrites

as if "elements"and "origins"meant the same thing. This is confusingbecausethe termelementssuggestsa contingent ormationand so is consis-

tent with the term crystallization,whereasthe term origins implies that

totalitarianism volved froma primarycause. Arendtactuallyclarifies the

distinctionbetweentheseterms n a draftfor theessay "Understandingnd



Disch / STORYTELLING N ARENDT'S WRITINGS 677

Politics," where she writes that "the elements of totalitarianism orm its

origins if by origins we do not understand 'causes.' . . . Elements by them-selves never causeanything.Theybecomeoriginsof eventsif andwhenthey

suddenly crystallize into fixed and definite forms."66This passage, however,

does not makeit into the version of theessay that was published n Partisan

Review.67Thus, in the preface to Origins, her only public statement of

method,Arendtmixesmetaphors f physicsandevolution,therebyobscuringthe distinctionbetween contingencyand causalitythatpresumablymoved

her to choose suchpeculiarwords as elements,amalgamation, ndcrystalli-zationin the firstplace.

Of course, it is possible that Arendtsimply changedher mind over thecourse of writingOrigins. Perhapsshe believed that she had solved these

dilemmas andconsequentlyhad no need to carryheruncertaintyntoprint.I suggest thatshe did not, in fact, resolve thembut, rather, uppressed hem

to conformto conventionsof explanation.This is evidencedby the fact that

she resurrectsheargumentshatdid not makeit into theprefacein herreplyto EricVoegelin'sreview of the book. Because Arendtfails to makepublicher more detailed statementof the problemof understanding s she lays it

out in the earlymemos, and fails tojustify her method as a responseto that

problem,she leaves herworkopen to misinterpretationn termsof the very

epistemic frameworkshe claims to writeagainst.It is just such a misinter-

pretation,by Voegelin, thatpromptsArendt to be more forthcomingabout

her method.

Voegelinobjectsto Arendt'sworkon bothmethodologicaland substantive

grounds. He characterizesher approachas an "emotionally determined

method of proceedingfrom a concrete centerof shock towardgeneraliza-tions."68His objectionis not to Arendt'semotionalpresencein the work; n

fact, he calls that "the strength"of the book and says it is reminiscentofThucydides.Rather,he objectsto the fact thatArendt s so caughtup in the

"phenomenaldifference"of totalitarianismhatshe does notsee its "essential

sameness"to the crises that follow from the agnosticismof the modernage.

Voegelin claims that totalitarianism s not unprecedentedbut, rather,the

"climax of a secularevolution"thatbeganin theHighMiddleAges with the

heretical notion that the perfection of humanity could be achieved not

through he graceof God butby acts of men.69Althoughhe agreeswith her

that it is a mass social phenomenon,he criticizes what he describes as her

attempt to "make contemporaryphenomena intelligible by tracing theirorigin backto the 18thcentury."70 e arguesthateighteenth-century vents

are only surface manifestationsof the deeper "spiritualdisease" of the

modernage, and so to penetrate he essence of totalitarianismArendtwould

have to locate its origin at "thegenesis of the spiritualdisease."7'Voegelin




depictsArendt'sworkas anevolutionary ale that alls shortof theoriginand

thereforemisunderstandshe essence of totalitarianism.Themethodologicaldilemmas hat she excised from theprefacereturn n

herresponse oVoegelin. nfact,thereplybeginswithArendtacknowledgingtheshortcomingsof theprefaceas a statementof methodandadmitting hat

she oughtto have made such a statement.She writes,"Ifailed to explainthe

particularmethodwhich I came to use, and to account for a ratherunusual

approach.. to the whole field of politicalandhistorical ciences as such."72

Arendtrepeatsthe problemshe explainedto MaryUnderwood, hat totali-

tarianism made her "write historically about something . . . which I did not

want to conservebut on thecontrary elt engagedto destroy."73 er answerto this problemwas to break totalitarianismnto its "chiefelements" and

analyzetheir"decisiverole" ncontributingothatparticular henomenon.74Arendtmakesit clear that she chose quiteconsciously not to constructan

evolutionarynarrative f totalitarianism ecausethat would be the kindof

laudatory,preservinghistoriography he wants to avoid. Thus Voegelin's

readingof herworkas a storyof the"genesis"of totalitarianismresupposesthecontinuingexistenceof a framework hatshe claims hasbeenshattered.

Arendtconcludesherresponseto this section of Voegelin'sreview with a

remarkable epudiation f thefor-publicationitle:"Thebooktherefore,does

notreallydealwith the 'origins'of totalitarianism-as its titleunfortunatelyclaims-but givesa historicalaccountof the elementswhichcrystallized nto

totalitarianism."75ers is an analysis,then,of theformationof totalitarian-

ism, not its genesis.Nowhereis the fact thatVoegelinhascompletelymissedherpointmore

evidentthanin his accusationthatshe is herselfprey to the disease of the

modernage. Voegelinmakesthis claiminresponse oArendt'sargumenthat

anepistemicbreakdown annotbuteffect a transformationf humannature.

Voegelin mistakes Arendt'scomplex argument or a mistakenuse of the

concept "humannature."He assertsthat "a 'nature'cannotbe changedor

transformed; 'changeof nature' s a contradiction f terms; amperingwith

the 'nature'of a thingmeansdestroyingthe thing."76 rendtrespondsthat

totalitarianism s not a "spiritualdisease" but a political crisis and that

humanity s notan essentialessencebut a publicphenomenon.Althoughshe

agrees thatthe masses are spirituallyempty, theirproblem s not that they

havelost theirfaithbutthattheyhave lostapublicspacein which to act.She

chides Voegelin for a cowardly escape into a comforting anachronism:"Historicallywe knowof man'snatureonly insofaras it hasexistence, and

no realmof eternalessences will ever console us if man loses his essential

capabilities."77 oegelinand Arendtassess totalitarianismrom utterlyin-

compatibleperspectives.He attributes herise of totalitarianismo agnosti-




cism, the loss offaith in fundamental ruthsconcerningGod, humannature,

and the universalprinciplesthatfollow from them. She attributes t to the

loss of thepublicrealm,whichcan be restorednotbytherecoveryof abstract

truthsbutby reuniting hinkingwith acting.To reestablish he connectionbetweenthinkingandacting,Arendtmust

redefineobjectivity.Shedoes thisin her defenseagainstVoegelin'scriticism

thatthe structure f Origins s "emotionallydetermined."Arendtargues hat

she uses morallycharged anguagebecause she believes, paradoxically, hat

explicit judgmentsare not less but, rather,more objective thanostensiblyneutralcategories. She writes that she "parted quite consciously" with

objective historiographyas it is conventionally defined, in an attemptto"describe he totalitarian henomenonas occurring,not on the moon, butin

themidst of humansociety."78Objectivity s not abstractneutraldescriptionbutexplicitly moralstorytelling,situated n the"personal xperience"of the

theorist.She illustrateswith a hypotheticalexample, positinga historianof

the Britishworkingclass who describes its povertyin the early industrial

revolution:

The naturalhumanreaction o such conditionsis one of angerandindignationbecause

these conditionsare againstthe dignityof man. If I describethese conditionswithout

permittingmy indignation o interfere,I have lifted this particularphenomenonout of

its context in humansociety and havetherebyrobbed t of partof its nature .... For to

arouse ndignation s one of the qualitiesof excessive poverty nsofaras povertyoccurs

amonghumanbeings.79

Arendtarguesthatit is a "methodologicalnecessity" o situatethephenom-enon she describes n the context of herown moraloutrageagainst t because

to describe a social phenomenonout of context of the moral response it

provokesis to depriveit of partof "its important nherentqualities."80hecalls attention o the fact that his narrative trategyamounts o a redefinition

of objectivity:"inthis sense, I think thata descriptionof the camps as hell

on earthis more "objective," hat is, more adequateto their essence than

statementsof a purelysociological orpsychologicalnature."8'

The reply to Voegelin raises at least as many questionsas it answers,however.The claim thatindignation s a "natural"esponseto an affrontto

the "dignityof man" assumes a sharedconception of dignityand a shared

belief thatpoverty s "against"t. Thisexample impliesthatsituated hinking

is not randomor idiosyncratic;rather, t takes its bearingsfrom a generalmoralcommon sense.But shedoes notexplainhow suchamoralsensewould

be possible without the traditional"guideposts"whose loss she has so

definitivelyproclaimed. tis to answer hisquestionthatsheturns,morethan

a decadelater,to Kant'sThirdCritique.




Before moving on to the lectures on judgment, however, I want to

concludethediscussionof Arendt'sredefinitionof objectivityby analyzingan essay on historyand a lectureon epistemologyin which she revisits the

themesshe initiates in herreplyto Voegelin.Given thatVoegelinmisinter-

pretsso much of what is unusualaboutArendt'sproject, t is ironicthathe

should claim that the strengthof Originsis its similarityto the writingsof

Thucydides.In herwritingson historyandepistemology,Arendtoffers The

PeloponnesianWaras a model of thekindof historicalwritingshe is tryingto achieve. She sees Thucydides'workas an exemplarof a kindof critical

historicalwriting hat s notgroundedn abstract niversalsbut nexperience.

She uses a contrastbetween ArchimedesandThucydidesas the vehicle fora critiqueof objectivist impartialityhat extendsthe themes she introduces

in herreplyto Voegelin.Arendtmakesadistinctionbetweenpoliticalunderstandingndobjective

knowledge.She arguesthatthe Archimedeanmodelof knowledgeis apolit-ical because of "its objectivity, ts disinterestedness, ts impartiality n the

consequenceswhich its pursuitof truthmighthave."82Thucydides,on the

otherhand,strives for politicalunderstandingn thathe attempts o inspirehisreaders oengagein criticalthinking.PeterEubendescribesThucydides'

project n a way thatspells out thedifferencebetweenobjectiveknowledgeandpolitical understanding,writingthat"by constructinga text thatrepli-cates the difficultiesfor the readerthathe faced as an historiandescribingandmakingsense of his realworld,Thucydidespresents or us theproblemof tryingto reconstitute ndcomprehend ollective experience."83s Euben

describes it, Thucydides' projectis preciselyanalogousto the problemof

Origins,whichis to write in a waythatgives one's readers heexperienceof

interpreting complex historicalsituation.

Note that the contrastArendt drawsbetween abstract

objectivityand

politicalunderstandingoesnot setupasimpledichotomybetweenobjectiveandexperiential hinking.That she valuesa kindof objectivity s evidenced

byher assessmentof Thucydides,whomshepraises orhaving"kepthimself

aloof, and quite consciously so, from involvement with the events them-

selves. . . . Obviously, no judgment such as Thucydides'-'This was the

greatestmovementyet known nhistory'-would havebeenpossiblewithout

suchwithdrawal."84heproblem hehaswith the Archimedeanmodel is not

that it is impartialbut that it makes abstractobjectivity a requisite of

impartialityandis consequentlyso far removedfrompoliticalconflict thatit cannot "pay any attentionto humaninterests."What she takes from

Thucydidesis a kind of impartialityachieved by a "much more limited"

withdrawal.85




It is typicalof HannahArendt o toss off a controversial tatementas if it

needednoexplanationand also typicalforsuch statements o touchonpointsof controversyand obscurity in her own thoughts.This presentationof

Thucydidesas a model of the kindof impartiality he thinksis appropriateto historicalwritingis a classic instance.If Thucydidescan be considered

impartial, t is not in any conventional sense of the word. In the firstplace,he is no disinterestedobserverof thePeloponnesianWar.He is a committed

participant,a general, who opens his account by identifying himself in

explicitly partisanterms as "Thucydides he Athenian."Second, there is

ambiguityover the question whetherThucydides,who wrote in exile after

the war,was in a positionto reporthistoryor whetherhe reconstructed heevents of the past.Some classicists questionwhetherwhathe wrote can be

considered"history" t all or whetherhe used thepastas a meansto presenthis own maturereflections on important ventsof his lifetime.86

Arendtseems to have viewed Thucydidesasshe didherself,as a politicaltheoristfrom whom the question of historical objectivity is an irrelevant

methodological debate. The task of the political theorist is not to report

objectively but to tell a story that engages the critical faculties of the

audience. Eubenmakesa similarclaim,creditingThucydideswith"offeringa new standard f accuracy"o his readers.He writesthat"howeverpersonalor Athenianhis work,howevermuch he mayhave had ties to thearistocratic

class atAthens,there is a sense in which he is absentfromhis discourse.Or

toputitmoreaccurately,he is tryingto sustainconditionswithin thetext that

makes discourse outside it possible."87This is no conventionalmodel of

objectivereporting, s itconsistsneither n abloodlesslyneutralwritingstylenor in anattempt o avoid selectivity but,rather,n the fact thatThucydidesleaves the reader with the task of interpreting he various conflicts he

represents. To Euben and Arendt then, who are political theorists,Thucydides' work achieves something more importantthan objectivity:

political impartiality.Political impartialitys not securedby meansof detachment rompolitics

butby fosteringpublicdeliberation hatdependson theability"to look uponthe same world fromone another'sstandpoint."88rendtcreditsthepracticeof political impartialityto the polis, which she idealizes as a realm of

"incessant alk"andplurality, nwhich"theGreeksdiscovered hat he world

we have in common is usually regarded roman infinite numberof different

standpoints, to which correspond the most diverse points of view."89Thucydides' work fosters political impartialityby an artistic (though not

fictional) creation of pluralityby his representation f speeches from the

multiple, divergent perspectives that constitute the public realm. Euben




writesthatThucydidesgives us "aformof politicalknowledgethatrespects,even

recapitulates,he

paradoxesand

'perspectivism' f political ife."9? hisaccountof politicalimpartiality,haracterized otby abstractionbutby the

interplayamong a pluralityof perspectives,anticipatesthe conception of

impartiality hatArendtwill discern in Kant'sdescriptionof the "enlarged

mentality"n ThirdCritique.SheadmiresThucydidesbecausehis imagina-tive history makes it possible for the readerto thinkas if engaged in the

debatesof his time.

This section bears out the claim that there is an "untoldstory"about

storytelling n the discrepanciesamongthe variousstatementsof method,

publishedandunpublished,hatArendt ormulated ver thecourseof writingOrigins.Thisstorydocumentsher"unusual pproach"opoliticaltheoryand

historicalwriting,in the shift she makes fromabstract,neutralreporting o

explicitly moralstorytelling rom thepersonalexperienceof the author.She

adopts hisapproacho demonstrate nd eacha kindof criticalunderstandingthat, n Nussbaum'swords,"consists n the keenresponsivenessof intellect,

imagination,andfeeling to theparticulars f a situation."9' hisearlywork

begins to describehow to make a judgmentfromexperience,arguingthat

one proceedsnotby applyingprinciples roma transcendentrameworkbut

by consideredattention o one's immediateresponse o anevent. Itdoes not

yet explainwhatmakesthiscontingent udgmentcritical.The answer o this

question lies in her attemptto discern a political philosophy in Kant's

Critique of Judgment.

SITUATED IMPARTIALITY

In her lectureson ThirdCritique,Arendtexplains that she is drawntoKant'sconceptionof tasteas a model forpoliticalthinkingbecauseshefinds

in it a formulationof impartialityhat accordswithplurality. tssubject,she

claims, is "men ntheplural,astheyreallyareand ive in societies."92Where

practicalreasonis individualandabstract, maginingthe principleof one's

act as a universalrule,Kant definesthe impartialitynecessaryfor aesthetic

judgmentin termsof intersubjectivity,whichhe calls "enlarged hought."93

Arendt creatively appropriatesKant's descriptionof taste as "enlarged

thought" o explainhow one gets fromexperienceto criticism:the critical

moveentailsa shift fromthinking romaprivateperspective othinking rom

a public vantage point. Her version of enlarged thoughtmakes a bridge

betweenstorytellingandsituated mpartial riticalunderstanding.




Arendt foreshadowsher turn to Kant's ThirdCritiqueas early as the

prefaceto

Originswhere she uses the term

"crystallization."As

SeylaBenhabib argues, this term is an attemptto explain the unconventional

structureandorganizationof thebook-the structure hat ArendtexplainedtoMaryUnderwoodaswriting"against" istory-by alluding oBenjamin's"Theses on the Philosophyof History."Benjamin argues that the critical

historianwho refuses to write from theperspectiveof thevictormust"brush

historyagainstthegrain."94 ccording oBenhabib,Arendtusesthepeculiar

language of "elements"and "crystallization" ecause she, like Benjamin,wants "tobreak he chain of narrative ontinuity, o shatter hronologyasthe

natural tructure f narrative,o stressfragmentariness, istoricaldeadends,failures and ruptures."95he crystallizationmetaphor s unquestionablyan

attempt by Arendt to bring Benjaminto mind, but it is also an allusion to

Kant'saccountof taste.

The reference to Kant affirms the claim of Arendt'searly writingsthat

political events arecontingentand so cannotbe namedor known in termsof

existing conceptualcategories.In ThirdCritique,Kantintroduces"crystal-lization" as a metaphorfor contingency,which he calls "the form of the

purposivenessof an object, so far as this is perceived in it withoutany

representationof a purpose."96Crystallizationdescribes the formation of

objects that come into being not by a gradual, evolutionaryprocess but

suddenlyandunpredictably bya shooting together, .e. by a suddensolidi-

fication, not by a gradual transition . . . but all at once by a saltus, which

transition s also called crystallization."97n describinga kind of beingthat

is contingentbutsusceptible ocriticalevaluationnonetheless,crystallization

justifies the possibility of a kindof judgmentthatis both spontaneousand

principled.98

In calling totalitarianism thefinalcrystallizingcatastrophe"hatconsti-tutesits various"elements" nto a historicalcrisis,Arendtmakes ananalogybetweencontingentbeautyandunprecedentedvil. Thisanalogyturnsonthe

claim that totalitarianism, phenomenonto which no abstractcategoricalframework s adequate,poses a problemof understandinghat is similar to

thatposed by beauty.Political events, like aestheticobjects, can neitherbe

explained in evolutionaryterms norjudged with referenceto an external

purposeorprinciple.Even so, we are boundto discern theirmeaningorelse

to relinquishour freedomby reactingwithoutthinkingagainstforces we do

not understand.Arendt s drawn o ThirdCritiquebecause she wantsto argue hatpolitical

judgment is not a kind of practicalreason or moraljudgmentbut a kind of

taste. Moral udgment,according oKant, s "determinant," hich meansthat




it functionsby subsuminga particularnstanceundera generalrule that is

rationallyderived

prioro thatinstance.99

aste,on the

otherhand, s reflec-tive. It operates n a contingentsituation,meaningone for which there can

be no predetermined rinciple,so thata thinker akes herbearingsnot from

the universal but from the particular p. 15). Leaving technical languagebehind, heimplicationof reflective udgment s that t isprimarily oncerned

with questionsof meaning.Arendt's urnto ThirdCritique or a model for

politicaljudgmentis utterlyconsistentwith herearlyessays, then,because

aesthetic judgment confronts the world from the start as a problem of

understanding.

Kant's problemin ThirdCritiqueis to account for the possibility ofaesthetic udgmentby distinguishing udgmentsaboutbeautyfromidiosyn-craticpreferences,on one hand,andfromcategoricalvalues,on the other.

He claimsthatanexpressionof tastein thebeautifuldiffers fromour interest

in the pleasant,to which we aredrawnby the desire for gratification,and

from our regardfor the good, which we are compelled to esteem by its

objective worthaccordingto the categorical mperative.Tasteis uniquein

that it is spontaneousbut principled.He calls it "a disinterestedandfree

satisfaction;for no interest,either of sense or of reason,here forces our

assent"(p. 44). To accountfor the possibilityof aestheticjudgment,Kantmustexplainhow an expressionof taste can be morethan"groundlessand

vain fancy,"withoutarguingthat it is objectively necessary(p. 191). Kant

answers hisproblemby proposing hataesthetic udgment s intersubjective.A statementof preference s subjective, n thatwhenI affirm hatsomethingis pleasing I mean that it is pleasing to me; in statingthat something is

beautiful,however,I amexpressinga preference hatI attributeo everyoneelse. Aestheticjudgmentdiffersfrompureandpracticalreasonin thatthis

claimto intersubjective alidityis not

justifiedwith reference o anabstract

universalconcept of beauty but rests on a purportedlycommon sense of

pleasurein the beautiful.This common sense is, accordingto Kant,what

makestaste"strangeandirregular" ecause"it is not anempiricalconcept,

buta feeling of pleasure(consequentlynot a conceptat all) which, by the

judgmentof taste,is attributedo everyone" p.27). Heexplainsfurther hat

taste speaks"witha universalvoice ... [but]does notpostulatethe agree-

ment of everyone. ... It only imputes this agreement to everyone, as a case

of therule in respectof which it expects, not confirmationby concepts,but

assentfrom others" pp.50-51). That s, althoughajudgmentof tastecannotbe proved,its validityturnson the presumptionhat otherswould assent to

it. The paradox hatKant sustains n definingtasteas ajudgmentthattakes

its bearingsnot from transcendentalonceptsbut fromfeeling is analogous




to Arendt'sattempt odefinepolitical udgmentas criticalunderstandinghat

does not withdraw o an abstractvantage point but takes its bearingsfromexperience.

PaulGuyerhas noted that Kant's account is deeply ambiguousbecause

Kant proposes to defend the possibility of taste both on the groundsof

intersubjectivity, hatajudgmentaboutbeautyis imputed o everyoneelse,andon thegroundsof communicability,hatit actuallysecures the assent of

othersin public exchange. AlthoughKantappearsto suggest thatintersub-

jectivity is both necessary and sufficient to communicability,one could

imputeajudgmentto others withoutcommunicating t to themordefending

it to theirsatisfaction.Guyerclaims thatintersubjectivity akesprecedenceover communicability n Kant'sargument,writingthatalthoughKant "isat

pains to show thatpleasure n the beautifulmaybe imputed o others,he is

not atequalpainsto show how suchpleasuremaybeconveyedfromone who

feels it to one who, in particularcircumstances, does not.""l'What is

interestingabout this ambiguity or thepurposesof thisessay is that Arendt

makesa creativeappropriationf tasteby suggestinga significantlydifferent

groundof validity.Arendtpoliticizes Kant'sconceptof tastebyarguing hat ts validityturns

on "publicity."'o'Publicitymeansopenness to contestation,which she de-

scribes as "the testing that arises from contact with other people's think-

ing."'02This claim that criticalthinking nvolves contestationsuggests that

neitherintersubjectivitynor communicabilityadequatelyaccounts for the

possibility of reflectivejudgment.In contrastto intersubjectivity, ublicity

requiresthat a judgmentcome into "contact"with others'perspectives;it

cannot simply be imputedto them. But "contact"and "testing" n no way

imply thatvalidity dependson actuallysecuringgeneralassent to one's own

beliefs. On the contrary, given Arendt's claim that the public realm isconstitutedby a pluralityof divergentperspectives,generalassentwould be

notjust an unlikelyoutcome of publicdebate but an undesirableone. Thus

Arendtpoliticizes Kant's "taste"by eschewing its tendencytowardconsen-

sus in favor of contestation.

Even though "publicity"makes a significantdeparturerom Kant's de-

fense of taste, Arendt attributes t to him nonetheless, claiming that she

learned it from his concept "common sense." Kant argues that aesthetic

judgment presupposescommon sense, which he defines as a capacity to

practice "enlarged hought."This practiceinvolves "comparingyourjudg-ment with the possible rather hanthe actualjudgmentsof others,and by

putting ourselves in the place of any other man, by abstracting rom the

limitations which contingentlyattach to our own judgment."'03 hus Kant




argues hatone raisesone's idiosyncratic reference or anobjectto acritical

judgmentby abstracting romone'sowncontingent ituation o arriveat thestandpointof anyobserver.

HannahArendtappropriates enlarged hought" rom Kant'sThirdCri-

tique but with a creative departure rom the original that she does not

acknowledge.Arendt writes that the general validity of taste is "closelyconnectedwithparticulars,with theparticular onditionsof the standpointsonehas to go throughnorder o arriveat one's own 'general tandpoint.'"104

Whereenlarged hinking,as Kantdescribes t, involves abstractingrom the

limitationsof acontingent ituation o think n theplace ofany otherman,"'05

Arendtspeaks explicitly of a general standpoint hat is achieved not byabstractionbut by considered attentionto particularity.'6Thus enlarged

thought,in her terms, is situatedrather han abstract.She calls it training"one's imaginationto go visiting,"07which involves evoking or telling

yourself the multiplestories of a situation rom the pluralityof conflicting

perspectives hatconstitute t.'08Enlarged hought s Arendt'sanswerto the

questionof how one moves fromexperience o criticalunderstanding, ut it

is not the Kantian"enlarged hought"hatshe has in mind.

Inher creativeappropriationf ThirdCritique,Arendtredefinesenlarged

thoughtfromabstractreasoningto what I call "situated mpartiality." he

creditsKantwithbreaking rom the customaryassumption hatabstraction

is requisite o impartiality,writing hatKantianmpartiality isnot the result

of somehigherstandpointhatwould thenactuallysettle[a]disputeby being

altogetherabovethemelee"; nstead, t "isobtainedbytaking heviewpointsof others into account."109uriously,Arendtconceals her innovationby

failingto mark he distinctionbetweensituated mpartial hinkingandKant's

"enlargedmentality."Whereenlargedthinkingis a consequenceof either

securingassentto one's judgmentor simply imputing t to others,situated

impartial hinkinginvolves takingdivergent opinions into account in the

processof makingupone's mindand,ultimately,ocatingone'sjudgment n

relation o thoseviews. Althoughsheconcealsit,Arendtmakesa significant

breakwiththeuniversalizingassumptionsof Kant's hought.The departurerom Kant's "taste" s even morepronounced,as Arendt

argues that it is not the philosopherbut the storytellerwho possesses an

extraordinaryalentforenlarged hinking." Arendtdescribesstorytellingas

anartthatneeds"acertaindetachment romtheheady, ntoxicatingbusiness

of sheerliving that,perhaps,only the bornartistcan manage n the midstofliving.""'Althoughthis descriptioncomes fromheressay on IsakDinesen,

theconceptualization f storytellingon whichit reliesbrings o mindWalter

Benjamin'sessay, "TheStoryteller."Not only does Benjamincredit story-

tellerswith theabilityto thinkcritically"in the midstof living,"buthe also



Disch / STORYTELLING N ARENDT'S WRITINGS 687

implies thatstorytellers nspire enlargedthinkingin others: "thestoryteller

takeswhat he tells fromexperience-his ownor thatreportedbyothers.Andhe in turnmakesit the experienceof those who are listeningto his tale.""2

As Benjamindescribesit, thecapacityfor situated mpartial hinking s not

the storyteller'sexclusive privilege, and the storytelleris not the kind of

teacherwho impartsa lesson to her listeners.Rather, hestoryteller'sgift is,in his words,the ability to craft an accountthatis "free fromexplanation,"

therebyteachingthepracticeof situated mpartialvision.13 A skillfulstory-teller teaches her readersto see as she does, not what she does, affordingthem the "intoxicating" xperienceof seeing frommultipleperspectivesbut

leaving themwith theresponsibility o undertakehecriticaltask of interpre-tation for themselves.

This capacity of storytellingto invite situatedimpartial hinkingcan be

understood only if the distinctions among storytelling, testimonial, and

illustrationareclearlydemarcated.A testimonial s self-expressive: t asserts

"this is the way I see the world."It is fully determinedby theexperienceof

the speakerand,as such, can inspirerefutationor empathybut not critical

engagementas Arendtdefinesit. In contrast, llustration s not at all expres-sive. Itspurpose s to give anecdotal"proof'of a theory;consequently, t is

determinednot by experiencebutby the abstract ramework t is meant to

exemplify. Thekind of storythatArendtandBenjaminhave in mind invites

the reader o "go visiting," asking"how would the worldlook to you if yousaw it from thisposition?"

The criticalperspectivethat one achieves by visiting is neitherdisinter-

ested, like Kant's taste, nor empathic.Arendtwrites that "thisprocess of

representationdoes not blindly adoptthe actual views of those who stand

somewhereelse, and hence lookuponthe worldfrom a differentperspective;

this is not a questionof... empathy,as thoughI tried to be or to feel likesomethingelse ... but of beingandthinking n my own identitywhereI am

not."'l4Visitingmeansimaginingwhat theworld would look like tome from

anotherposition, imagining how I would look to myself from within a

differentworld,andcoming to understand hatI mightdefine my principles

differently if I did not stand whereI am accustomedto."5 Wherevisiting

promotesunderstanding,mpathyobstructs t.By empathizingwithanother,I erase all difference. But when I visit anotherplace, I experience the

disorientation hat ets me understandusthowdifferent heworld ooks from

differentperspectives.The relationshipbetweenstorytellingandsituated mpartialitys multiple

andcomplex. Storytelling s a meansby whichone"visits"differentperspec-tives. It is also a narrative orm that lends itself to giving a multiperspectivalaccountof asituation, hat, nturn, nvites others o"visit" hoseperspectives.




Relative to abstractargument,estimonial,andillustration, he advantageof

a story is that it can be both ambiguousand meaningful at once. Anambiguousargument, estimony,orexampleis less effective for its indeter-

minacy,because hepurposeof suchmodesof discourse s to distilltheplural

meaningsof an incident into definitive conclusions.Ambiguityin a story

encourages the permanentcontestation and multiple reinterpretation f

meaningsthat make situated mpartiality ossible.In Arendt's unfinished lectureson judgment,then, there is an implicit

answerto thequestionof how thinking romexperiencecanbe critical.This

answer turnson a creative appropriation f Kant'senlarged thinking by

means of storytellingand situatedimpartiality.For Arendt,critical under-standinginvolves telling or hearingmultiplestories of an event from the

pluralityof perspectivesthatit engages. One purposeof testingone's per-

spectiveagainst heperspectivesof others s to takea stand n fullrecognitionof the complexityand ambiguityof the real situations n whichjudgmentsare made.One furtherpurpose s to holdoneself responsibleto arguewith

andspeaknotonly to those with whom one agreesbut to those with whom

onedisagrees.This meansnotsimplyacknowledginghe inevitablepartialityof any individualperspectivebut insistingthatperspectivaldifferences be

raised, contested,and situatedin referenceto each other.The point is not

consensusor accuracybutpluralityandaccountability.

CONCLUSION

This essay has told the storyof Arendt'sattempt o find a way to think

criticallyabouttotalitarianismwithoutrecourse o an Archimedeanvantage

pointanda way to write about t thatwouldengageher readers n makingacriticalresponseto thatphenomenon.In answerto thisproblem,she writes

anexplicitlymoralnarrativehatsituates otalitarianismn the contextof her

reaction o it as a thinkerwhose ethicaltraditionthasdestroyedandtells the

storyof totalitarianismrom as manyperspectivesas she can imagine.Her

aim, thoughnot herstyle, is like Thucydides':to re-present otalitarianism

in a way thatexhortsher readers ojudgment.Arendt'sconceptionof politicaltheory s, in the wordsof VirginiaWoolf,

"moretruth hanfact."16Woolf uses this phrase n the opening pages of A

Roomof One'sOwn,whichis ostensiblyanessay on the subjectof "women

and fiction."Like Arendt,she apologizes to her audiencethat she cannot

produce a "nuggetof pure truthto wrap up between the pages of your

notebooks"andproposesto tell a storyinstead."7LikeArendt,herapology



Disch / STORYTELLINGN ARENDT'S WRITINGS 689

is disingenuous.Woolf tells a storynot becauseit is the best she can do but

becauseit

isthe best she can do.

Further,he does so not becauseshe wants

to illustratehertheoriesaboutwomen writersortoexpressherfeelings about

being a woman writerbut to give the "audience he chanceof drawing heir

own conclusions as theyobserve thelimitations, heprejudices, heidiosyn-crasies of the speaker."18Woolf, likeArendt,suggests thatthe most"objec-tive" way to write abouta social questionor problemis to situateit in the

context of the beliefs thatgave rise to it. This means telling the storyof a

situation na waythatmakesexplicitthedispositionof the authorandrelates

as many of its constituentperspectives as possible. Storytellingis "more

truth" hanfactbecause it communicatesone'sown criticalunderstandingna way that invitesdiscussionfrom rivalperspectives.

From her early writings to her unfinishedlectures on judging, Arendt

sustains the belief that political theory can be understoodas a kind of

storytelling.Itspurpose,as she understandst, is not to make a descriptivelyaccuratereportof the world but "to transcend he limitationsof facts and

information" o tell a provocativeandprincipledstory."9 n almostso many

words,it is Woolf's distinctionbetweentruthand fact thatArendt s attempt-

ing to achieve. She struggles o inventa way of writingabouttotalitarianism

that will not define that phenomenonso much as answer its ethical and

epistemological challenge: she writesto move her audience to engage with

herin thinking"whatwe aredoing."'20

NOTES

1. HannahArendt,

Between Past and FutureNew

York:Penguin,1954, 1968),

87.

2. HannahArendt,"TheImageof Hell,"Commentary (1946): 291-95, at 292.

3. Arendt,BetweenPast and Future,26.

4. HannahArendt,"Notes for Six Lectures"esp. "TheGreatTraditionandthe Natureof

Totalitarianism,"presentedatthe New School,March18-April22, 1953).5. HannahArendt,"A Reply" [to Eric Voegelin'sreview of Origins of Totalitarianism],

Review of Politics 15 (1953): 76-84, at 79. Althoughpositivists in Arendt'stime may have

modeledtheirresearchmoreclosely after hatof objectivescience, few politicalscientiststodaysustainthe belief that theories can be perfectlydetachedfromthe commitmentsof the scientist

who espouses them, and few deny thatmethodologyand results are mutuallyconditioning.If

read for her critiqueof positivism,these early essays would be of little interestbecausethey

addressa well-worndebate-and notverypersuasivelyat that.But the attraction f theseessaysis not for the case she makesagainstpositivismas for thecaseshe makeson behalfof storytelling.Arendt is exceptional thatshe actuallytells storiesaboutDreyfusandDisraeli, uses passagesfromProust,and refers to LawrenceofArabia in supportof the theoreticalclaims she makes

in Origins.




6. Seyla Benhabibarguesthat "the historiography f National Socialist totalitarianism

presentedArendtwithextremelydifficultmethodologicaldilemmaswithnormativedimensions,

andthatwhilereflectinguponthese dilemmasArendtdevelopedaconceptionof politicaltheoryas 'storytelling.'" See, "HannahArendt and the RedemptivePower of Narrative,"Social

Research57 (1990): 167-96,at 170.

7. HannahArendt,"Actionand the Pursuitof Happiness"paperdeliveredat the American

Political ScienceAssociation,Library f Congress,11).

8. ErnstVollrath,"HannahArendtand the Methodof PoliticalThinking,"Social Research

44 (Spring 1977): 160-82, at 161. Along with Benhabib,Vollrath'sessay is a noteworthy

exception,as is David Luban,"ExplainingDark Times: HannahArendt'sTheoryof Theory,"Social Research50 (1983):215-47.

9. HannahArendt,"Reply," 7.

10.Vollrath,"HannahArendtandthe Methodof PoliticalThinking,"162.11. See, forexample,MartinJay,"HannahArendt:OpposingViews,"PartisanReview45

(1978): 348-80.

12. RichardBernstein,Beyond Objectivismand Relativism(Philadelphia:Universityof

PennsylvaniaPress,1985).

13. DonnaHaraway,"SituatedKnowledges:The Science Questionin Feminismand the

Privilegeof PartialPerspective,"FeministStudies14(1988): 575-99, at 581.

14. Ibid.

15. Although here are similaritiesbetweenthe pluralistand contestedqualityof Arendt's

storytellingandHaraway's"situated nowledges," herearealsosignificantdifferences.Tonote

justone, the distinction hatArendtmakesbetweenthepublicand social realmsrules out some

of the questions hatHaraway onsiderscrucial o "situating" nowledgeclaimsand"embody-

ing"objectivity.As thefocus of this essay is the workof HannahArendt, t is beyondits scope

to pursue hiscomparisonhere.Consequently,t is importanto make t clear that n mentioning

HarawayI mean to do no morethansuggestpartial affinitiesbetween her work andthatof

HannahArendt.Becausemyown thinkingabout heepistemologicalcontributions f Arendt's

storytellinghasobviouslybeeninfluencedby Haraway's"situated nowledges," t is important

andnecessary o acknowledgetheconnection,even withoutmakinga precisecomparisonand

contrastbetweenthem.I treat his comparisonmorefully in an unpublished onferencepaper,

"Situated mpartiality: xploring he Intersection f Feminism,Poststructuralism,ndPolitical

Philosophy."

16. For an accessible historyof the problem,see RichardBernstein,TheRestructuring fSocial and Political Theory(Philadelphia:University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1976). For a

discussionof theintersection f thisdebatewithcontemporaryeminist heory, ee AlisonJaggar

and Susan Bordo, eds., Gender/Body/KnowledgeNew Brunswick,NJ: RutgersUniversity

Press,1989).17.TracyStrong,The Ideaof Political Theory NotreDame,IN:Universityof NotreDame

Press, 1990), 119-20.

18.HannahArendt,TheHumanCondition Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1958),7.

19. Ibid.,184.

20. Vollrath,"HannahArendtandthe Methodof PoliticalThinking,"165.

21. Luban,"ExplainingDark

Times,"248.

22. Ibid.,228.

23. Ibid.,247.

24. EricVoegelin,"TheOriginsof Totalitarianism,"eviewof Politics 15 (1953): 68-76.

25. HannahArendt, "Philosophy and Politics" (Arendt papers, Libraryof Congress,

1954), 32.




26. Arendt,"Actionand the Pursuitof Happiness," -3.

27. HannahArendt,"On HannahArendt,"n HannahArendt:TheRecovery of the Public

World, ditedby MelvynHill (New York:St. Martin's,1979),336-37.28. HannahArendt,"PersonalResponsibilityUnderDictatorship"draft,Libraryof Con-

gress, 1964), 27.


30. AlasdairMaclntyre,After Virtue Notre Dame, IN: Universityof Notre Dame Press,

1981), 201.

31. BenjaminBarber,TheConquestof Politics (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,

1988), 183.

32. HannahArendt,Eichmann n Jerusalem New York:Penguin,1963, 1983), 86.

33. Arendt,Between Past and Future,6.

34. MarthaC. Nussbaum,The Fragility of Goodness(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1986). Subsequentreferences o this workappear n the form of pagesources.

35. Arendt,"Notes for Six Lectures," sp. "TheGreatTradition nd the Natureof Totalitar-

ianism."

36. Luban,"ExplainingDarkTimes,"218.

37. HannahArendt,"UnderstandingndPolitics,"Partisan Review 20 (1953): 377-92, at

382.

38. The Black Book:TheNaziCrimeAgainstthe JewishPeople, compiledandeditedbythe

WorldJewishCongress, heJewish Anti-FascistCommittee, he VaadLeumi,andtheAmerican

Committeeof JewishWriters,ArtistsandScientists(New York:Duell, Sloan & Pearce,1946).

Quoted in HannahArendt,"The Imageof Hell [review of The Black Book]"Commentary

(1946): 291-95, at 291.

39. Ibid.,292.

40. Letter o DavidRiesman,datedJune13, 1949.

41. See also the prefaceto BetweenPast and Future,where Arendtarguesthat it is notby

logical consistencyor accuratedescription hat one tells the truthbutby criticalthinking.42. Draft of memo A to Underwood,probablyAugust1946,Libraryof Congress.43. Draftresearchoutline,"TheElementsof Shame.Antisemitism-Imperialism-Racism,"

August 1946, Libraryof Congress.44. Draft of Memo Ato MaryUnderwood,probablyAugust 1946, Library f Congress.45. Ibid.

46. HannahArendt,"SocialScience Techniquesand the Studyof ConcentrationCamps,"Jewish Social Studies 12 (1950): 49-64, at 49.

47. Ibid.,50.


49. Arendt,"Social Science Techniques," 1.

50. Ibid.,60.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.,61.

53. Arendt,"TheImageof Hell,"292.

54. Luban's "ExplainingDark Times" is a noteworthyexception. This essay is a most

illuminating xplicationof Arendt's

ritiqueof

positivesocialscience.

AlthoughLuban riticizes

Arendtforrelyingtoo much onpassingreferences o theoreticalphysicsand too little on explicit

argument,nonetheless he draws fromArendt'svarious assertions about social science a more

plausiblecritiqueof positivismthanshe makesherself.

55. See Michael Oakeshott,"The Voice of Poetryin the Conversationof Mankind,"n

Rationalism n Politics (New York:Methuen,1962, 1981).




56. Arendt,"Social Science Techniques," 0, 51, 58.

57. Arendt,"TheImageof Hell,"292.

58. Benhabib,"HannahArendtandtheRedemptivePowerof Narrative," 86.59. In England, he book appearedas TheBurdenof OurTimes,a title less in the style of

social science thanthatwhichappearedn the UnitedStates butstill missingthe allusion of the

workingversion.

60. HannahArendt,"Outline," or Mary Underwood,probablyAugust 1946, Libraryof

Congress.61. Similarly,Seyla Benhabibcalls the termoriginsa "misnomer" or the work,in which

Arendtmakes t "clear hatshe is not concerned o establishsome inevitablecontinuitybetween

the past and the presentof such a nature hat one has to view whathappenedas what hadto

happen." n"HannahArendtand the RedemptivePower of Narrative," 71.

62. HannahArendt,AntisemitismSan Diego: Harvest, 1951, HarcourtBraceJovanovich,1951, 1968),x.

63. This is exactly the pointon which she is takento taskby critics who see her as a Cold

War deologist.See BenjaminR.Barber tal., TotalitarianismnPerspective:ThreeViews New

York:Praeger,1969).

64. Arendt,Antisemitism, .

65. Ibid.,xi.

66. HannahArendt,"Onthe Natureof Totalitarianism: n Essayin Understanding"type-

script,Library f Congress,undated),7.

67. Arendt,"Understandingnd Politics."

68. Voegelin,"[Reviewof] Origins,"70.

69. Ibid.,69.

70. Ibid.,emphasisadded.

71. Ibid.,74.

72. Arendt,"Reply," 7.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.,77-78.

75. Ibid.,78-79, emphasisadded.

76. Voegelin,"[Reviewof] Origins,"74.

77. Arendt,"Reply," 3.

78. Ibid.,79.

79. Ibid.,78.80. Ibid.,79, 78.

81. Ibid.,79.

82. HannahArendt,"The ArchimedeanPoint"(publishedtranscriptof a lecture for the

Universityof MichiganCollege of Engineers,1968).

83. J. PeterEuben,TheTragedyof Political Theory(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity

Press,1990), 197.

84. Arendt,"TheArchimedeanPoint,"6.

85. Ibid.,25. Forrelateddiscussionsof theepistemological tatusof politicalunderstanding,

see WilliamConnolly,TheTermsof Political Discourse (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversity

Press, 1983);and

TracyStrong,The Idea

ofPolitical Theory,chaps. 1, 3.

86. For a discussion of this controversy,see John Finley, ThreeEssays on Thucydides

(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1967). Finley'sreadingof Thucydidessupports

Arendt'sposition.Heargues hat heworkis neithera simplefabrication ora literallyaccurate

reportbut, rather,a "possiblepictureof men's attitude" owardthe events of the war (p. 3).




Thucydidesoffers a representation f thingsthatcould have been said in a workthat"instyleas well as in thoughtcarriesthe imprintof the pastitself' (p.89).

87. Euben,TheTragedyof Political Theory,197,emphasisadded.88. Arendt,BetweenPast and Future,51.

89. Ibid.

90. Euben,TheTragedyof Political Theory,199.

91. Nussbaum,TheFragility of Goodness,191.

92. HannahArendt,Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, edited by Ronald Beiner

(Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress,1982), 13. (hereafterLectures)93. ImmanuelKant,Critiqueof Judgment, ranslatedby J. H. Bernard New York:Hafner,

1951), 136.

94. WalterBenjamin,Illuminations New York:Schocken,1969),257.

95. Benhabib,"HannahArendtandtheRedemptivePower of Narrative,"182-83.96. Kant,Critiqueof Judgment,73.

97. Ibid., 194.

98. PaulGuyeralso connectsthe discussionof "crystallization"o contingency.He arguesthatKantuses crystallization o arguethatthe "mechanicalprocessesof nature"are sufficient

to accountfor the existence of natural orms,and so "the actualexistence of beautifulformsin

naturedoes not requireus to attributeany actual intentions o natureor its creator."Kant and

the Claimsof Taste Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1977), 349.

99. Kant,Critiqueof Judgment,15. Subsequentreferences o this workappear n the form

of page sources.

100. PaulGuyer,

"PleasureandSociety

in Kant'sTheory

ofJudgment,"

nEssays

in Kant's

Aesthetics,editedby Ted Cohen and PaulGuyer(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1982),

21-54, at 23. Also, Guyer,Kantand the Claimsof Taste,279-82.

101. Arendt,Lectures,42.

102. Ibid.

103. Kant,Critiqueof Judgment,136. As Guyernotes, the claim that common sense is a

practiceis only one of the threeways that Kant defines thatconcept in the text. Kant and the

Claimsof Taste,280-81.Thisdefinition s most mportantorthepurposesof thisessay,however,

because it is the oneon which Arendt ocuses in Lectures.

104.Arendt,Lectures,43-44.

105. Kant,Critiqueof Judgment,136,emphasisadded.

106. Dagmar Barnouw remarksupon another instance of what I would call creativeappropriation n Arendt's translationof allgemein as "general."Barnouw notes that it is

customary n Kantscholarshipto translate he termas "universal," lthoughit can also mean

"general,""common,"or "public."It is used idiomaticallyto indicate widespreadbelief or

commonconsent rather han universal ruth.Barouw claims that Arendt'sdecision to draw on

its idiomatic use is a deliberatedeparture rom "thedesirable universalstandpoint n Kant's

meaning[which]is located aboveratherhan ncommunity."DagmarBarnouw,VisibleSpaces:Hannah Arendt and the German-JewishExperience(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1990), 21-22.

107. Arendt,Lectures,43.

108. Thereis also someambiguity

n Arendt'saccount ofjudgment,

as RonaldBeiner has

noted.Whereas n Arendt'searlierwritingspublicityhasliterally o do with thepublic space,in

the Kantlecturesit can be internal o the mind of the theorist.She writes that criticalthinkingis "still a solitarybusiness, [though t] does notcut itself off from 'all others.'[Rather,]by the

force of imagination t makes the otherspresentand thus moves in a space that is potentially




public, opento all sides"(Arendt,Lectures,43). Beiner takes this passageto meanthat Arendt

hassimply mportednto herown workKant'sambiguityover the differencebetween mputation

andactualcommunication.Althougha full discussion of Beiner'swork is beyondthe scope of

this essay, I disagreewith Beiner and also with BenjaminBarberwho claim that in her last

writingsArendtretreats rompoliticsto the rationalism f the solitaryspectator.As I arguein

the following pages,therearesignificantdifferencesbetweenArendt'sand Kant'sconceptionsof theimagination.See BenjaminR. Barber,TheConquestof Politics(Princeton,NJ: Princeton

UniversityPress,1988),chap.8.

109.Arendt,Lectures,42.

110. In arguingthat Arendtassigns the practiceof enlarged thinkingto the storyteller,I

disagree stronglywith RonaldBeiner.He reads he Kant ecturesas a shift "from herepresen-tativethoughtandenlargedmentalityof politicalagentsto the spectatorship ndretrospective

judgmentof historiansandstorytellers." ee Beiner,ed., "Interpretive ssay," n Lectures,91.As I have arguedthroughouthis essay, the problemof historicalwritingas Arendtsees it is

preciselythatthe historian s nota spectatorof thepastwho is disengaged romtheproblemof

actionbuta critic who tells thestoryof the pastin the midst of presentquestions.111. HannahArendt,Men in Dark Times(New York:HarcourtBraceJovanovich, 1959,

1968),97, emphasisadded.

112.Benjamin, lluminations, 7.

113.Ibid.,89.

114.Arendt,BetweenPastand Future,241.

115.Foranaccountof somethingquitesimilar,see MariaLugones,"Playfulness, World'-

Travelling,and

LovingPerception,"n GloriaAnzaldua,ed., MakingFace, MakingSoul (San

Francisco:AuntLute FoundationBooks, 1990).

116.VirginiaWoolf,A Roomof One'sOwn(New York:HarcourtBraceJovanovich,1929,

1957),4.

117.Ibid.,3.

118. Ibid.,4.

119.Arendt,"On he Natureof Totalitarianism,".

120. Arendt,TheHumanCondition,5.

LisaJ. Disch teachespolitical theoryat the Universityof Minnesota.Herbook,CriticalUnderstandingn the Workof HannahArendt,will be publishedby CornellUniversity

Press. She haspublishedessays in PS and Signs.

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