To Hannah Arendt, the work of art is characterized as a "thought-thing." The expression, which is an elaboration of Kant, refers to the idea that art is both material and possible to de-sensualize and de-materialize. Art fills the function of sustaining cultures and providing a value of permanency. To Arendt, this function can in turn be guaranteed by the function of judgment, sensus communis, which she interprets in terms of a sense of "realness."