| This dissertation offers a comprehensive study of the political and theoretical implications of Hannah Arendt's definition of thinking. It does so with the intent to show that the concept, beyond being pervasive throughout Arendt's oeuvre, occupies an integral part of her political thought. As such, this comprehensive analysis aims to relocate the concept of thinking within the structure of Arendt's political thought -- not by replacing action with thinking as the conceptual pivot of Arendt's political theory, but by making the case that the concept of thinking is fundamental to her critique of world alienation as well as to her project of salvaging action from its traditional and modern degradation. That Arendt's political theory turns on the concept of political action is irrefutable; it is, however, also knitted together and shaped by her ongoing attempt to reclaim thinking from its homeless and static condition.;This mental activity of thinking is, in fact, central to Arendt's quest for a definition of an individual that is neither mechanically determined by history and social conditions nor "liberated" through isolative reasoning, that is, an individual that is situated in the world among her fellow men. The concept of thinking is, in this sense, critical to Arendt's critique of world alienation. From a different perspective, a type of thinking Arendt presents under the name of "judging" reveals her intent to renew the political dignity of opinion and to reinstate the world in-between men. For this form of thinking is what makes possible the equivocal position from which one can encounter her fellow citizens, allowing them to understand how and in what specific articulation the common world appears to each other. To understand the full meaning of the critical, rebellious, intersubjective, and worldly elements of Arendt's political thought, it is therefore imperative to identify and comprehend the political-theoretical implications of Arendt's definition of thinking. |
