The article is aimed at examining the role of thinking and the faculty of judgment in the constitution of the world of culture in H. Arendt’s existential hermeneutics. The influence of the ideas of I. Kant, M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers on her approach to this topic is studied. It is revealed that the world of culture is understood by Arendt as a kind of supra–natural, fixed in the language and intersubjectively meaningful semantic unity, covering the objects and actions of people present within it. It accumulates the efforts of an existential subject living in time, his practical and contemplative activities – Vita Activa and Vita Contemplativa. The article emphasizes that thinking and judgment are interpreted by Arendt as the most important means of enriching the semantic potential of culture. Raising a very urgent problem, Arendt speaks of thought as ensuring the integrity of the semantic horizon of culture, while the faculty of judgment allows to constantly enrich its cognitive and value–semantic potential through the generalization of the diverse phenomena that the subject encounters. The faculty of judgment sets the possibility of unity of cognitive and moral perspectives, thus overcoming an obstacle of the constant temptation to “abandon thinking” and the triumph of the "banality of evil".
culture; the world of culture; H. Arendt’s existential hermeneutics; I. Kant’ heritage; Vita Activa and Vita Contemplativa; thinking; judgment; “banality of evil”.