Judgment and Action. On the Concept of Judging in Arendt and Gadamer

The dissertation focuses on the theme of practical judgment (i.e. judgment related to human action) in Hannah Arendt and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Despite substantial differences in philosophical approaches, perspectives and motivation, I show that there are important areas of overlapping. I approach the problem of judgment in a systematic way, being fully aware that especially Hannah Arendt does not treat judgment systematically; what is more, a book she meant to dedicate to the problem of judging remained unwritten. The dissertation is divided into three parts. I start with the relation between judgment and rules. The second theme is judgments' validity, especially the specific kind of validity of political and moral judgments, while the third part concentrates on how judgment is related to other people and the world. I also try to evaluate the way Arendt interprets Kant's theory of aesthetic judgment as well as Gadamer's criticism of Kant. In the third part I investigate not so well known areas of Gadamer's and Arendt's philosophy such as their notion of solidarity and the way how they grasp the relation between judgment and responsibility (or responsibility of judgment, both towards one's own self and towards the world)