Thinking Without a Banister

“Even though we have lost yardsticks by which to measure, and rules under which to subsume the particular, a being whose essence is a beginning may have enough of origin within himself to understand without preconceived categories and to judge without the set of customary rules which is morality.”

-Hannah Arendt, “Understanding and Politics,” Essays in Understanding.

Arendt here is speaking of understanding and judging by oneself — without reliance on “preconceived categories.” This is what she meant by “thinking without a banister.” As did Nietzsche — who asked in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Have not all hand-rails [banisters] and foot-bridges fallen into the water?” Arendt saw the loss of yardsticks and measures that mark our age as both a crisis and an opportunity.

When one thinks without a banister, one thinks without reference to either unquestioned categories of thought or to unquestionable ones.

When Nietzsche urges us to “doubt better than Descartes” he is urging us to think without a banister. Such thinking is dangerous, as it must be beyond good and evil and thus without…