Who is the Spectator? Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on Thinking and Judging

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Year of Publication

1999

Author

Hermsen, Joke J.

Book

The Judge and the Spectator: Hannah Arendt on Thought and Action

Pages

59-78

Publisher

Peeters

Place Published

Leuven, Belgium

Language

English

Keywords

beauty
collective
Arendt, Hannah
individualism
personal/impersonal
philosophy
politics
self

Annotation

Hermesen offers a thoughtful, well-documented comparison of Hannah Arendt’s concepts of ‘whatness’ and ‘whoness’ to Weil’s ideas of the ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’. In so doing, she offers insightful critical reflection on the complex relationships among thinking and judging, philosophy and politics, thought and cognition and the individual and collective.