The Internal Tension Between The Actor And The Spectator And Its Resolution

Considering the arising of political outrage which led by the lack of consensus principle and individual ability to judge. Hannah Arendt interpretated Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment politically, By studying the conceptions such as "imagination", "common sense (orsensus communis)", "the enlarged mentality" and "exemplary validity", she constructed a unique system of political philosophy in which "judgment" can be seen as the core. She did not live to write the volume on judging that was to complete her theory, but scholars have tried to reconstruct her answer. By studying Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, which edited by Ronald Beiner, we can make a reliable interpretation.The actor and spectator points of view is very critical to Arendt’s political judgment theory,therefore, how to understand the subjects of the two different judgments, is the major issues in understanding Arendt’s judgment theory and her political philosophy as a whole. On the one hand,Arendt asserted judging is a(political) decision-making ability by which an actor can make in the field of public, while on the one hand, the judge is the ability of a referee to judging after the event. In the later one, judging is not the most critical feature of political life any longer, but a part of the mind life. It is to regain the meaning and understanding of the events of the past, in other words, an impartial standpoint of a judging activity can only be given by a spectator, not an actor.As a representative of a view, Beiner hold that the judgment of actor and spectator should be noticed as a significant switch in the late-stage of Arendt’s theory of judgment, emphasizes the inner and great theoretical tension. He consider that Arendt did not show us a unified judgment theory, with the maturational procession of the theory, the establishment of the tension between the actors and spectators from the perspective of two discrete model is becoming more and more prominent, View this assertion as a target, this paper argues the correspondence of two kinds of angles of view.In this paper, to a large extent, the incomprehensive understanding of the dichotomy between actor and spectator can not help us to understand the whole theory of judgment reasonably. Although there are differences between theory periods, it should not be regarded as a theoretical fracture. This paper will illustrate why the tension of the actor and spectator produced by analyzing the context of Arendt’s judgment and operation process.In order to get a reasonable explanation, our comprehension of the tension must be placed in the public realm collapse of modern world context and refer to Arendt’s "political" and "action" defined, all of that can help us to understand the reflective judgment constructed by the interaction between the two perspectives, which is essential for Arendt judgment theory construction. Toachieve this goal, the introduction part of the paper is on the analysis of relevant research results, at first, Arendt’s and Kant’s political philosophy of the restructuring should not be understood as the interpretation of the original content, but a new reconstruction in the times. Only by presenting the background of Arendt’s life, can we provide the theoretical and practical reference to understand the separation between the actors and the spectators. By interpretating Kant’s concept of imagination, example, common sense and enlarged mind, Arendt’s creative understanding of Kant’s theory is addressed. Subsequently, by the wiping off priori meaning of Kant’s common sense.Finally, this paper will point out the necessity of the existence of tensional two models, emphasizing the dynamic conversion process of two perspectives is crucial to solve the split problem in the theory of Arendt’s judgment.