Imagination, Reflection, and Democracy

by Louis-Thomas Kelly

“When I imagine the world from your point of view, I do so as myself. The result is something altogether new, a ‘third thing’ — my view plus yours — which is an improvement on either of our views by themselves” (Arendt, 1982, p. 42).

In “Agonistics without Agony,” a chapter that will soon appear in an edited volume by Nicholas Dunn on Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, I write about how urban planning and design can create a pluralistic place where Hannah Arendt’s ideas of ‘going visiting’ and reflective judgment can appear and punctuate democracy, but also shape the public space that holds us together. The point of the chapter is to think of an empirical philosophy that informs us about how Arendt’s work is particularly helpful for those who want to imagine how the world could be beyond the way it appears. In particular, it foregrounds our reflective judgements, which operate from the particular to the general, rather than those determinate modes of thinking that inversely descend from general to particular.

In this reflection, I focus on a passage from Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy that struck me when I first encountered Arendt — in an undergraduate political theory course at McGill University. As I grappled with Arendt and Kant for the first time, I heard my professor tell us that we need to change the way we think about politics, and we must see their origins within the self; in how we sense, perceive, and express ourselves. It is our imagination that proves to be the creative force behind our artifice, and the necessary precursor to our (political) judgements.

My interpretation of the quote proceeds by breaking it down into three parts. First, Arendt says that “when I imagine the world from your point of view, I do so as myself.” What Arendt is saying is that, while we are bound to our own interpretations, through our imagination, we can at least form an impression of standpoints foreign to our own. This is a testament to the intersubjective validity that underlies Arendt’s theory, and a reminder that own artifice is our most constructive tool. Secondly, the claim that “The result is something altogether new, a ‘third thing’ — my view plus yours” delves into Arendt’s belief that our experience is about confronting novelty and bringing new things into the world. This ‘third thing’ tells us that, when we make an effort to put ourselves in the shoes of others, our points of view can meet and develop into something that is neither mine, nor yours, but something distinctly new — and, thus, ours. Finally, Arendt contends that this ‘third thing’ upholds democracy and draws us out of our isolation, “which is an improvement on either of our views by themselves.” Therefore, Arendt’s pluralism challenges unanimity (Gürsözlü 2017), and sees political action as an exercise of individual freedom and autonomous, reflective judgment.

An act of enlarged mentality, thinking about the world from views other than your “means that one trains their imagination to go visiting” . I argue that it is this ‘going-visiting’ which is integral to pluralistic democracy, and that the creative and imaginative work of urban planning/design of public space is an opportunity for its exercise. In a previous Quote of the Week, Nicholas Dunn discusses this importance of imagination to public life: “Arendt characterizes judgment as composed of two mental operations — the first is imagination, which “prepares” an object for judgment. The second is reflection, which, she claims, is the “actual activity” of judging.” This means that imagination and reflection are twin operations, and that our creativity is a generative force and important precursor to political action. In practice, the urban planning and design procedures responsible for building our common world taps into the “fabricating abilities” of our imaginings and reflections. Hence, as Jannemarie de Jonge argues, spatial design is a matter of reflective judgment — an opportunity to apply Arendt’s views, as they requires creative imagination to bring unseen and useful possibilities into view. The creative and artistic work underlying our public domain holds, as Cecilia Sjöholm puts it, a “special place in the formation of the public sphere, although they may speak in the most intimate details.” The explorative activities of the design process involve ‘going visiting’ in the consideration of the perspectives of users, clients, and other potential variables. In my own research, a design workshop prompts explorative activities with participants, and allows us to imagine, and articulate, how a public realm could change (Figure 1, below). With the authors of space placing themselves in the shoes of its users (and vice-versa), the creative and artistic gesture of design gives us the chance to ‘go visiting’ as Arendt intends.

References

Arendt, H. (2006). Between Past and Future. New York, NY: Penguin Classics.

Arendt, H. (1982). Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Edited by R. Beiner. University of Chicago Press.

Dunn, N. (2023, October 1). “Preparing the Particular: Arendt on the Imagination’s Role in Judgment.” HAC: Quote of the Week. Retrieved June 17th, 2024. https://medium.com/quote-of-the-week/preparing-the-particular-arendt-on-the-imaginations-role-in-judgment-17eb38a297ad.

Gürsözlü, F. (2017). “Democratic Potential of Creative Political Protest.” Critical Studies: International Journal of Humanities 3, 20–31.

de Jonge, J. (2008). Landscape Architecture between Politics and Science: An Integrative Perspective on Landscape Planning and Design in the network society. Bennekom: Modern.

Kelly, L. (Forthcoming). “Agonistics Without Agony: A Public Space for Counter-Remembrance with Arendt, Mouffe, and Beyond.” In Nicholas Dunn (Ed.), Works of Philosophy and Their Reception: Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. De Gruyter.

Sjöholm, C. (2015). Doing Aesthetics with Arendt: How to See Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

About the Author:

Louis-Thomas Kelly is a PhD candidate and researcher at the University of Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory, and Material Culture. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from McGill University (2021), and a Masters of Sciences in Urban Planning from the University of Groningen, Netherlands (2022). His work finds itself at the intersection of political theory, urban planning and design, and their applications in relation to contested memory and heritage — with a particular focus on Canada. His PhD research explores creative, art-based methods of memory and spatial research, and applies agonistics to public space.

Amor Mundi, the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College