Starting from studies included in Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology, the author unfolds the thesis that Patočka was fundamentally a thinker in the tradition of the Enlightenment and of the Czech humanist revival. According to the author, Patočka sets out from Husserl’s phenomenology (in the spirit of Austrian positivism), deals with Heidegger’s objections (in the spirit of German idealism), and forges his own synthesis (in the spirit of French phenomenological vitalism). The author considers Patočka’s nihilistic phase, between the heartbreak of the Soviet occupation and the hope of Charta 77, as an extreme attempt to keep faith with the hopes of the Enlightenment in an age that offered no hope.
The first part of the article is an interpretation of Patočka’s philosophy of history, with an emphasis on the essential connection of philosophy and a politics founding a new, historical life-form. The task of the philosopher, the model of whom is Socrates, is to question the sense of the world as hitherto given. The basic possibility of the historical person is, then, the possibility of freedom, liberation from being bound to life, and the assumption of responsibility for one’s own existence. In the modern world, however, determined as it is by the supremacy of the natural sciences, a loss of sense has taken place and there is a paradoxical return to pre-history. In the second part of the article the author concerns himself with Patočka’s reflections on Czech history arising from his philosophy of history, and with the personal relation of the philosopher Jan Patočka to his nation. The author emphasises, above all, Patočka’s distinction between the “little” and the “great histories”, that is between the historical epochs of the Hussites and the United Brethren, when the Czech nation showed it was able to take responsibility for universal ideas and its own existence, and the later and contemporary epochs when, out of fear for its own existence, it gave up freedom and its own responsibility. The author, in this connection, emphasises the urgency of the actualisation of the Hegelian dialectic of “lord and bondsman”, which Patočka’s considerations also point to, and highlights Patočka’s linking of philosophy and personal engagement in the spirit of Socrates.
Jan Patočka (1907–1977) approached Johannes Amos Comenius as a fellow-philosopher, while admiring him also for his intellectual and moral steadfastness. He studied Comenius as a philosopher from the thirties onwards, stressing the latter's unique position in the history of Czech and European thought. Patočka's many Comeniological publications were analysed and highly appreciated by fellow-Comeniologists. In the first volume, containing correspondence with Czech friends and colleagues, letters start in the early thirties, but Comeniology, including the vicissitudes surrounding the edition of Comenius's complete works, come to the fore from the late fifties onwards. Correspondents include friends and colleagues such as Josef Brambora and Antonín Škarka and a few older colleagues. A large number of letters was exchanged with Comenius's biographer Milada Blekastad and with the young philosopher Stanislav Sousedík. The second volume comprises letters exchanged with only a few foreign correspondents: next to the Ukrainian scholar Dmytro Čyževskyj and the French colleague Marcelle Denis, a personal friend of Patočka's, the greater part of the volume is filled with letters to and from the German scholar and personal friend Klaus Schaller. These two volumes add much to our understanding of Patočka's nearly lifelong and profound interest in Comenius's thought. The intellectual acumen and constant engagement reflected in these letters must have meant much to Patočka and his Comeniological correspondents in and outside Czechoslovakia. Maybe these exchanges of letters brought some light and consolation even in the darkest of times.
The study presented here focuses on the transformation in the 1940s and 1950s of Jan Patočka’s interpretation of the relationship between Socrates and Plato. This shift is tracked in the context of Patočka’s dialogue with the philosophy of existence. While in the lectures from the 1940s and the climactic work from this period, Věčnost a dějinnost (Eternity and Historicity), Socrates – with his emphasis on subjectivity, human freedom and incompleteness – is seen in Patočka’s conception to be close to the main motifs of the philosophy of existence, in Negativní platonismus (Negative Platonism) Patočka’s position is already far from such an “existential Socraticism.” The text of the study shows that Patočka’s critical reception of the philosophy of existence is one of the historically important motives in the transformation of Patočka’s position between Eternity and Historicity and Negative Platonism.
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Předložená studie se zaměřuje na proměnu interpretace vztahu Sókrates – Platón u Patočky ve 40. a 50. letech minulého století. Tento posun je sledován v kontextu Patočkova dialogu s filosofií existence. Zatímco v přednáškách ze 40. let a vrcholném díle vycházejícím z tohoto období, tedy Věčnosti a dějinnosti, je Sókratés svým důrazem na subjektivitu, lidskou svobodu a nehotovost v Patočkově pojetí blízký hlavním motivům filosofie existence, v Negativním platonismu je Patočkova pozice již vzdálena takovému „existenciálnímu sokratovství“. Text studie ukazuje, že Patočkova kritická recepce filosofie existence je jedním z historicky důležitých motivů v proměně Patočkovy pozice mezi Věčností a dějinností a Negativním platonismem.
There are questions that are so important that it is a pity to spoil them with answers. No doubt, the question of God is one of them. Contrary to many presuppositions, theology is not capable of providing us with the final answers in this respect. On the contrary, theology professed as fides quaerens intellectum is an ongoing struggle with questions. Modernity interrupted this paradigm of theological questioning. Theology was withdrawn from the realm of understanding and shifted to the realm of explanation. Modernity brought the univocalization of God. Nonetheless, the attempts to tackle the question of God lead to hegemonic narratives about God. Such narratives are rightly criticized in a postmodern context for their totalizing pretensions. The problem of postmodern criticism is its one-sided emphasis on the apophatic dimension of theological discourse. I propose that theology can go a step further beyond postmodernity. In order to do so, I deal with the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, who provides an opportunity to rethink God from the perspective of questioning in a new way. Patočka’s insistence on problematicity is the main reading key of his work. In this line of though, I interpret Patočka’s student Tomáš Halík and his thesis about the necessity to take the metaphor of an unknown God into account. I argue that theology must avoid the temptation to remove God from the question and make a well-known God of him. The time has come for theologians to turn their answers back into questions and dwell with them.
An analysis of Rádl’s Útěcha z filosofie (The Consolation of Philosophy) reveals it to be a work in which Rádl, ailing and overcome by events, resorts to mere moralising. It is my view that, even here, he maintains the full dynamic unity of wordly reality, which governs life itself, and abstract morality, which is supported by philosophical theories and systems. Despite the fact that many theses and concepts in the Consolation give the impression of a stereotypical moralising of life (“The Moral Order”), we always find in the text, alongside these themes, counterbalancing realist theses (life itself, the individual). I understand this balance between a concrete and a moral approach to human life as the principle reason for treating Rádl as closer to Socrates than to Plato (on the basis of the conception of the difference between Socrates and Plato in “Eternity and Historicity”, I take issue with Patočka’s “Platonic” interpretation of Rádl).
Jan Patočka swoim życiem i twórczością w pełni zasłużył na miano współczesnego Sokratesa. Bieg jego życia i meandry twórczości tworzyły puzzle doskonale się uzupełniające i zależne od siebie. Zainteresowania filozoficzne czeskiego fenomenologa oscylowały wokół doświadczenia „jedności pierwotnego świata”, w którego centrum znajdował się świat naturalny. Poddając analizie strukturę doświadczenia tego świata, autor niniejszego opracowania bada takie kategorie, jak: czas, cielesność, dom, otwartość, praca. Następnie rekonstruuje jedną z opcji odczytywania filozofii wychowania Patočki i ewolucji jej podstawowych zagadnień. Kluczową ideą w tej filozofii jest ruch, jako coś, co specyfikuje otwartą strukturę istnienia człowieka. W tym kontekście w sposób heurystyczny zostały sformułowane podstawowe kierunki myślenia i działania pedagogicznego, które implikuje tytułowe doświadczenie „jedności pierwotnego świata”. Artykuł publikowany jest w dwóch częściach, które stanowią integralną całość autorskiego ujęcia tytułowego problemu. Część pierwsza artykułu ma charakter studialnej rekonstrukcji. Część druga publikacji ma charakter autorskich implementacji twórczości Jana Patočki.
Jan Patočka swoim życiem i twórczością w pełni zasłużył na miano współczesnego Sokratesa. Bieg jego życia i meandry twórczości tworzyły puzzle doskonale uzupełniające się i zależne od siebie. Zainteresowania filozoficzne czeskiego fenomenologa oscylowały wokół doświadczenia „jedności pierwotnego świata”, w którego centrum znajdował się świat naturalny. Poddając analizie strukturę doświadczenia tego świata, autor niniejszego opracowania bada takie kategorie, jak: czas, cielesność, dom, otwartość, praca. Następnie rekonstruuje jedną z opcji odczytywania filozofii wychowania Patočki i ewolucji jej podstawowych zagadnień. Kluczową ideą w tej filozofii jest ruch, jako coś, co specyfikuje otwartą strukturę istnienia człowieka. W tym kontekście w sposób heurystyczny zostały sformułowane podstawowe kierunki myślenia i działania pedagogicznego, które implikuje tytułowe doświadczenie „jedności pierwotnego świata”. Artykuł publikowany jest w dwóch częściach, które stanowią integralną całość autorskiego ujęcia tytułowego problemu. Część pierwsza artykułu ma charakter studialnej rekonstrukcji. Część druga publikacji ma charakter autorskich implementacji twórczości Jana Patočki.
The article examines Półtawski’s reading of Patočka’s concept of asubjective phenomenology as presented in § 24 of the 1973 book Świat, spostrzeżenie, świadomość [The World, Perception, Consciousness]. The author discusses the main points of Patočka’s philosophy, especially his views on Husserl. For Patočka, phenomenology consists in a systematic analysis of whatever presents itself in experience. The method which problematizes the manifestation of phenomena is epoché. But the theory of transcendental reduction reduces phenomena to mere subjective appearances. For this reason, phenomenology should be pursued as an “a-subjective” project. Półtawski claims that Patočka is right in criticizing Husserl for falling into Cartesianism, but that he fails in defining the “phenomenal sphere” as the main subject matter of phenomenology. Półtawski holds that Patočka in fact continues the dogmatic motif of Husserl’ phenomenology and, moreover, that he reduces phenomena to their subjective being. The author analyzes Półtawski’s reading and claims that it has some limitations, including a misinterpretation of Patočka’s epoché, or the emphasis put on metaphysical claims of phenomenology.
This discussion study has the aim of reopening the debate about the publishing and interpreting of the work of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka (1907–1977). The piece is divided into three inter-related steps: 1) Firstly, attention is paid to the specific character of Patočka‘s nachlass, most of which was originally preserved only in manuscript form and which is broken up into several thematic areas. 2) Next, the piece examines the extended endeavour to work on the nachlass and to publish it. Special attention is given here to the Czech edition of Patočka’s Collected Writings, which have not yet been completed, and around which there have developed a series of stormy discussions. 3) In connection with this, it is argued that those who wish to interpret Patočka’s work in their own way face similar problems to the ones faced by the editors of the Collected Writings. The piece shows, at this point, that the problems associated both with the publication and with the interpretation of Patočka’s work stem from the very specific character of Patočka’s nachlass. So if we wish to find our orientation in Patočka’s extensive work, and to understand it, it will be necessary to take account of all the personal, socio-political and intellectual contexts in which it arose. In conclusion, therefore, the piece calls for a thorough and complex treatment of Patočka’s biography – work which should not be only a matter for philosophers, as hitherto, however, but also for historians.
The article deals with two influential interpretations of the Greek approach to care (epimeleia) in the work of Jan Patočka and Michel Foucault. At first sight, it seems that Foucault’s concept of care for the self (epimleia heautú) is in opposition to Patočka’s concept of care for the soul (epimeleia tés psychés). However, on a closer reading we find that both accounts arrive at the same conclusion. We can see this, for example, in the interpretation of Plato’s dialogue Laches which both authors put into the context of the way of life. In the following part of the article attention is paid to the development of Patočka’s understanding of care for the soul, and his approach to the philosophy of history. It is shown that Foucault’s approach to history is in many ways in opposition to Patočka’s. However, in spite of the different approaches to history, both authors problematize Greek care as an important theme of western culture and, against that background, they emphasise the therapeutic task of contemporary philosophy.
On the one hand, the present paper pursues transformations of Jan Patočka’s approach to the body and corporeality and tries to pinpoint its problematic aspects. The more essential and detailed part of the text presents a systematic interpretation of sketchy analyses of corporeality, as they appear in Patočka’s wartime manuscripts methodically based on transcendental phenomenology. Special attention is paid to Jan Patočka’s considerations on the sensory perception, and also to his more speculative ideas inspired by these reflections. In this context, we concentrate on the problem of the so called „hyletic stratum“. In the final part of the paper, we ask the question whether the sensible phenomenon of “expression”, and the considerations on the corporeal character of our existence in general, do not force us to abandon the way of thinking in substantial categories or, to be more precise, to abandon the idea of substantial “being for itself” independent on the being in relations with others.
This article focuses on Patočka’s conception of “negative Platonism”; it proceeds from Patočka’s study of the same name and looks to several other texts which have originated in connection with that study. First of all, it offers a brief résumé of the key points of Patočka’s conception (the experience of freedom, the conception of idea, the relation between idea and objecthood). Next, it summarises and comments on the main thoughts of Rezek’s, Kouba‘s and Hejdánek’s reflections and critiques of the conception (with a look at some other interpretations). With their help, the inner contradiction of Patočka’s conception is demonstrated, in which idea should remain purely negative, and yet be a calling to the world, enabling true discourse about beings. In conclusion the author of the paper puts forward the suggestion that it was this contradictory nature that led Patočka to abandon his “negative Platonism”.
The recently published manuscript studies and fragments by Jan Patočka, dating from the first half of the 1940’s, amount to an attempt at grasping the deeper living correlation, rather than the correlation of consciousness and its objects at the level of the subject- or of dwelling-centred strata of experiencing or understanding. The turn to the identity of “the double indifference of subject and object”, whose evidence is the sensory harmony between the feeling and the felt, which is interpreted as a mutual communication of the interiority of life by means of its expressions, confronts Patočka with the question of the origin of their differentiation. Patočka founds the identity and difference enabling the deeper living correlation on his metaphysical conception of nature which is not, now, just one of the horizons which experiencing creates around itself, nor is it just the basis on which the harmony of experiencing and its environment must develop, but nature also has an aspect which is closed and alien to subjectivity. This is a step beyond the bounds of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s schemes of a correlation of life and world, understanding and being – a step that throws a certain amount of light on Patočka’s later work.
The study deals with the political-philosophical standpoints of Edvard Beneš. The thesis of the study is that Beneš’s declared political principles stem directly from his philosophical views, which he already partially formulated in the period prior to the First World War, especially in his dissertation thesis titled The Origin and Development of Modern Political Individualism (Původ a vývoj moderního politického individualismu). The study shows that the formulation of Beneš’s political stances was strongly influenced by his analysis of the modern understanding of individualism. Beneš sides with 18th century contractualism, especially appreciating Locke. The study understands Beneš as a thinker and politician who reacted to the moral crisis of the first half of the 20th century, and who attempts to implement a renewal or educational process for the creation of a new Europeanhood. Beneš conceived his politics as an attempt to actualise ideas in a particular social situation.
Based on the analysis of texts by Jan Patočka, the author explores two concepts of human existence. The concept of three movements of life and the concept of two basic forms of life are examined in this paper, with the aim to referring to similarities and differences between them and to try to point out the essentials from these conceptions. The motivating question that gives rise to author´s efforts in this paper is: “What kind of agreement can be found between different concepts?”
This article discusses the relationship between Jan Patočka's and Václav Havel's political writings. By specifically focusing on Patočka's concepts a "life in the idea" and a "life in problematicity" and Havel's notion of a "life in truth", it seeks to draw out the differences and similarities between their respective understandings of the relationship between truth and politics. The paper argues that Havel reinterpreted Patočka's ideas in a way, which in the final analysis diverged from Patočka's original intentions. Finally, the article argues that Havel's, in many ways productive, reinterpretation gives rise to a highly problematic conception of ideology and politics since the "prepolitical" form of politics that Havel envisions ultimately tends to naturalize both truth and politics.
According to Václav Havel’s famous essay The Power of powerless life within a lie is at the core of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Life within a lie is characteristic for the great majority of people and is contrasted with life within the truth which is characteristic of dissent movement. In this paper, I will try to shed some light on the concept of “living within a lie.” I will show that Havel develops not one but two concepts of a lie: on the one hand, lie is deliberate pretence; on the other hand, lie is seduction by consumerist values. The first meaning of a lie is derived from Havel’s analysis of the specifics of the Soviet sphere of influence, namely central role of ideology with omnipresent demands on public support of the regime. The second meaning of a lie is heavily influenced by a critical assessment of modern society from the leading figure of the Czech underground movement Ivan Jirous and leading Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. This double meaning of a lie enables Havel to capture both specific problems of living under the communist regime and general problems of living in modern society anywhere in the world. In the final chapters of this paper, I will show that Havel is not clear about how these two meanings of a lie are connected and that there are problems resulting from these unclarities both for Havel’s analysis of the communism and his proposed solution of the crisis.
The article attempts to systematize the reception of Jan Patočka’s thought in Polish philosophy and phenomenology. The author argues that Patočka’s philosophy resonated in Poland on three different levels: 1) the theory of subjectivity, and the concept of a-subjective phenomenology; 2) practical philosophy, and the problem of freedom and responsibility; 3) a socio-political dimension that involves both the actual political meaning of the idea of care for the soul and a theoretical reflection on the limits of such a political involvement. The very first reaction in Poland on Patočka’s thought is Tadeusz Kroński’s critical review, published in 1939, of Přirozený svět jako filosofický problém (The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem). As the author shows, Kroński’s subjective reading is later redefined in the light of a-subjective phenomenology, and finally develops the popular exposition of phenomenology as a theory into a form of questioning (e.g., Tischner, Michalski).
CS
Článek usiluje o systematický pohled na recepci Patočkova myšlení v polské filosofii a fenomenologii. Autor dovozuje, že Patočkova filosofie našla v Polsku ohlas na třech úrovních: 1) jako teorie subjektivity a koncepce asubjektivní fenomenologie; 2) jako praktická filosofie a jako tematizace problému svobody a odpovědnosti; 3) ve společensko-politické dimenzi zahrnující jednak politický výklad myšlenky péče o duši, jednak teoretickou reflexi mezí takového výkladu. První polskou reakcí na Patočkovo myšlení byla recenze Tadeuzse Krońského na Patočkův Přirozený svět jako filosofický problém, publikovaná r. 1939. Jak autor ukazuje, Krońského výklad zdůrazňující subjektivitu byl později redefinován ve světle asubjektivní fenomenologie; fenomenologie, tradičně pojímaná jako teorie, byla nakonec pochopena jako forma problematizujícího tázání (např. u Tischnera a Michalského).
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Der Artikel bemüht sich um eine systematische Erfassung der Rezeption von Patočkas Denken in der polnischen Philosophie und Phänomenologie. Der Autor erläutert, dass Patočkas Philosophie in Polen auf dreierlei Ebene Anklang fand: 1) als Theorie der Subjektivität und Konzeption der asubjektiven Phänomenologie; 2) als praktische Philosophie und als Thematisierung des Problems von Freiheit und Verantwortung; 3) in der gesellschaftlich-politischen Dimension, die zum Einen eine politische Auslegung des Gedankens der Sorge für die Seele umfasst, zum Anderen eine theoretische Reflexion der Grenzen einer solchen Auslegung. Die erste polnische Reaktion auf Patočkas Denken war die Rezension von Tadeuzs Kroński zu Patočkas 1939 veröffentlichtem Werk Přirozený svět jako filosofický problém (Die natürliche Welt als philosophisches Problem). Wie der Autor zeigt, wurde Krońskis Interpretation, in der die Subjektivität betont wird, später im Lichte der asubjektiven Phänomenlogoie neu definiert; die traditionell als Theorie aufgefasste Phänomenologie wurde letztlich (z. B. bei Tischner und Michalski) als eine Form der problematisierenden Fragestellung begriffen.
The article focuses on the phenomenological critique of metaphysics and science as it is outlined in Patočka’s project negative Platonism and asks what kind of place does mathematics hold for humans in the world. First the text deals with Patočka’s concept of the relationship of science, philosophy, and the entire world with reference to key concepts: Idea, the experience of freedom, truth as a relation to Idea, and the interior-/exterior-world position of philosophy. It then pursues the distinction between objectivity and non-objectivity in non-metaphysical philosophy, which preserves the experience of freedom and responsibility so as to maintain the tension between philosophy and science. Finally, the article presents its own proposal of what kind of possibilities this perspective opens up to mathematics so that it reflects the living world of the mathematician and does not fall into paradoxes and misconceptions of existence. The primary thesis is that mathematical reasoning needs metaphysics for total knowledge and the understanding of the world, not metaphysics as something preceding, but as something reflected with knowledge and in knowledge in order that it could not wholly show the world as a world of the physically living, answering to it and looking after it.
CS
Studie se zaměřuje na fenomenologickou kritiku metafyziky a vědy, jak je načrtnuta Patočkovým projektem negativního platonismu, a ptá se, jaké místo má matematika pro člověka ve světě. Text se nejprve věnuje Patočkově pojetí vztahu vědy, filosofie a celku světa s odkazem na klíčové koncepty: Idea, zkušenost svobody, pravda jako vztah k Ideji a nitro-/mimosvětská pozice filosofie. Poté sleduje distinkci nemetafyzické filosofie objektivita – neobjektivita, která uchovává zkušenost svobody i odpovědnosti, aby udržela napětí mezi filosofií a vědou. Nakonec předkládá vlastní návrh možností, jaké se v tomto pohledu matematice otevírají, tak aby reflektovala žitý matematikův svět a neupadala do paradoxů a nepochopení existence. Hlavní tezí je, že matematické uvažování k celkovému vědění a porozumění světu metafyziku potřebuje, avšak nikoli předchůdnou, ale s poznáváním a v poznávání reflektovanou, aby mohlo necelkově vypovídat o světě jako světě tělesně živých, odpovídat mu a starat se o něj.
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