The shattering of meaning. Jan Patočka and his triple concept of history

Continental Philosophy Review - My paper aims at laying out the main tenets of Pato?ka’s unusual and highly provocative position with regard to the question of history, drawing...     

Day and Night Overlap: Jan Patočka’s Phenomenological Interpretation of the Front-Line Experience

With insight from the methodology of phenomenology, Jan Patočka draws multiple meanings from the special front-line experience, including new understanding of the fringe of death, absolute freedom, universal responsibility, and solidarity with enemies. The front-line experience is in sharp contrast with daily life experience, and is regarded by Patočka as a continuous consciousness of problematization toward history. This consciousness, which the front-line experience gives rise to, can be maintained through true care for reality and history. Patočka names this “care for the soul” and regards it as the core of the European spirit. The potential philosophical and historical value of the front-line experience urges Patočka to maintain an eternal fight, and he eventually concludes that it is this eternal fight that brings forth eternal peace.     

Jan Patočka’s sacrifice: philosophy as dissent

This article attempts to bring together the life, situation, and philosophical work of the Czech phenomenologist Jan Pato?ka in order to present his conception of philosophy and sacrifice and to understand his action of dissent and his own sacrifice as spokesman for Charter 77 in light of these concepts. Pato?ka philosophized despite being barred from teaching under the German occupation and under the communist regime, even after he was forced to retire and banned from publication. He also refused the official philosophical categories of communism and, what is more, criticized the very manner in which its ideology allowed it to function. Against the destruction of moral and political life by communist and liberal regimes alike, he outlined the necessity of a “life in the idea” that would be responsive to the notion of sacrifice. Such a position of distance from the things of the world which remains anchored among them is meant to respond to dissatisfaction with the world as it is found and is the very movement of human freedom. Taken together, these three aspects of his philosophical practice made him a dissident, a role he took on more completely when, as part of the Charter 77 movement, he publicly opposed the state, in a course of action that led to his death.     

Heretical Hindsight: Patočka’s Phenomenology as Questioning Philosophy

I argue that Jan Pato?ka’s phenomenology can be understood as a kind of questioning philosophy that preserves the work and thought of Edmund Husserl by holding it in hindsight. Following Martin Heidegger’s lead to take up Husserl’s phenomenological questions more than Husserl’s answers, Pato?ka further develops Heidegger’s strategy with the addition of heresy: the philosophical process of distinguishing traditional questions from their answers in such a way as to preserve both, the original wonder sourced in questioning as well as the specific answers that compose tradition. As excellent answers can tend to eclipse the powerful dynamism of original questions, heretical philosophy is revealed to be Pato?ka’s way to take up, modify, and enact Husserl’s motto “to the [questions] themselves!” In this way, Pato?ka’s further develops phenomenology while at the same time throwing a thinker back onto phenomenology’s central questions.     

Reduction and the Question of Beginnings in Husserl,Fink and Patočka

The article is an attempt to define reduction as the beginning of philosophy. The author considers such questions as: What motivates a phenomenologist to do reduction? Can one speak of philosophy before reduction? What is the essence of reduction? To answer these questions the author refers to Husserl, Fink and, Pato?ka, and tries to show that reduction is to be understood as an unmotivated expression of philosopher’s will to overcome evidence inherent to natural attitude. The author argues that reduction enables one a problematization of the world as such. Finally, reduction is defined as an attempt to take doing philosophy seriously.     

The Art of Sculpture: Jan Patočka’s Concept of Incarnate Being

Jan Pato?ka is known as a philosophical analyst of the phenomenological concept of the live-word (Lebenswelt), which contradicts the preoccupations expressed in Sir Herbert Read’s Art of Sculpture. This essay interprets Pato?ka’s “philosophy of sculpture” in the intellectual context of communist Czechoslovakia, arguing that he regarded sculpture as an incarnate being. His phenomenological interpretation defies all attempts to narrow such a being to the realm of mere haptic or visual sensibilities.     

Patočka and Foucault: Taking Care of the Soul and Taking Care of the Self

The paper deals with Jan Pato?ka’s and Michel Foucault’s influential interpretations of the ancient Greek approach to care (epimeleia). At first sight, it might seem that Foucault’s care of the self is opposed to Pato?ka’s care of the soul. On closer reading, however, it becomes clear that the two interpretations lead to similar conclusions, as exemplified by the way the two authors interpret Plato’s Laches: both of them see it in relation to the issue of how to live one’s life. Further on, the paper deals with the development of Pato?ka’s understanding of care of the self and his approach to the philosophy of history. It is revealed that Foucault’s approach to history is opposed to Pato?ka’s on a number of issues. Despite their diverging opinions, however, the two authors problematize the ancient Greek care of the self as an important issue in Western culture, emphasizing the therapeutic role of contemporary philosophy along the way.     

The Freedom of Thought: Patočka on Descartes and Husserl

Pato?ka highlights the central role of Cartesianism in our tradition of thinking. Yet, today, brain scientists often claim to have overcome Cartesian dualism. In this paper, I argue that the Cartesian conceptions of human nature and sensory perception remain presuppositions of brain science, where perception is largely equated with thinking. Equating perception and thinking means that thinking is a determined process, which leads to an erosion of critique. Critique, and the freedom of thought it entails, is essential to Descartes, Husserl and Pato?ka. I examine the differences, as well as the relationship, between Descartes method of doubt, Husserl’s phenomenological epochē and Pato?ka’s universalization of the epochē. I also show how Descartes’, Husserl’s and Pato?ka’s way into critique present different ways to understand self, things and the world. In conclusion, I suggest that Pato?ka presents a promising way to critique mechanistic understandings of thinking by rethinking both subject and object.     

Martin Ritter: Into the world: the movement of Patočka’s phenomenology

Continental Philosophy Review - The studies of the Czech phenomenologist Jan Patočka (1907–1977) has been flourishing recently. Martin Ritter’s book Into the...     

Patočka’s Care of the Soul Reconsidered: Performing the Soul Through Movement

Care of the soul is arguably the core concept in Pato?ka’s phenomenology. However, what is the soul? In this paper I seek to determine its ontological meaning, connecting the concept of caring for the soul with that of the movement of existence. Starting from Pato?ka’s affirmative presentation of Aristotle’s criticism of Plato, I interrogate the “orthodox” Platonic concept of caring for the soul and develop an alternative notion, putting emphasis on action in the world. I demonstrate the impossibility of identifying the third movement with true existence, or with the care for the soul, whether conceived as the performance of philosophy or as political action. Finally, I outline a reinterpreted concept of care for the soul in which the (active) self-moving of the soul is not ontologically prior to (passive) responding. The soul is inherent in action; and it is free only as responding to the world and responsible only in being free.     

Remorse and Self-love: Kostelnička’s Change of Heart

Does remorse imply self-hatred? In this paper, I argue that self-hatred is a false response to one’s wrongdoing because it is corrupted by the vice of pride, which affects the perception of its object. To identify the detrimental operation of pride, I propose to study the process of change of heart and its impediments. I use the example of Kostelni?ka, from Janá?ek’s opera Jen?fa, to show that the impediment to remorse is active already as a source of wrongdoing and self-deception. I identify three different aspects of Kostelni?ka’s pride: social ambition, defensive anger, and moral ambition. I show that it is pride as moral ambition that prevents the wrongdoer’s acknowledgment of her blameworthiness by causing her obsession with her blameless self-image and corrupting her self-love. In the last part of the paper, I reject Kostelni?ka’s initial self-hatred before her change of heart, because it is not based on an accurate judgement of her agency. Kostelni?ka’s true remorse is thereupon connected with her inner transformation towards humility and with a reorientation of her attention towards the victim of her wrongdoing, as testified in her plea for forgiveness. The implied moral improvement and reconstitution of her relationship to herself and others opens the way for her coming to terms with her guilt.

     

Husserl’s Phenomenology of Animality and the Paradoxes of Normality

In this article, I will discuss the Husserlian phenomenology of animality, by focusing on several texts of the 1920s in which the animal is determined as an abnormal variation of the human being. My aim is to address the question of the abnormality of the animal by reintegrating it in its original context, which is Husserl’s theory of normality. I will sketch the general framework of this theory, its articulations and strata, in order to eventually raise some paradoxical issues, specifically in relation to how the question of animality is interpreted through the couple normality/abnormality.     

Derrida and Cavaillès: Mathematics and the Limits of Phenomenology

Abstract

This paper examines Derrida’s interpretation of Jean Cavaillès’s critique of phenomenology in On Logic and the Theory of Science. Derrida’s main claim is that Cavaillès’s arguments, especially the argument based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, need not lead to a total rejection of Husserl’s phenomenology, but only its static version. Genetic phenomenology, on the other hand, not only is not undermined by Cavaillès’s critique, but can even serve as a philosophical framework for Cavaillès’s own position. I will argue that Derrida’s approach to Cavaillès is fruitful, facilitating the exposition of some central Cavaillèsian ideas, including the notion of dialectics. Nevertheless, it is important to evaluate Derrida’s own arguments against static phenomenology. I undertake such an assessment in the last section of the paper, showing that Gödel’s theorems do not in themselves warrant rejection of static phenomenology. I base this conclusion in part on Gödel’s own understanding of phenomenology as a philosophical basis for mathematics.     

Rethinking the Body and Space in Alfred Schutz’s Phenomenology of Music

What is initially striking about Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological account of the musical experience, which encompasses both the performance and reception of music, is his apparent dismissal of the corporeal and spatial aspects of that experience. The paper argues that this is largely a product of his wider understanding of temporality wherein the mind and time are privileged over the body and space, respectively. While acknowledging that Schutz’s explicit or stated view is that the body and space are relatively insignificant to his account, the paper reveals how they actually feature significantly in the latter, but in ways that remain largely implicit. First, the analysis demonstrates that the mental and temporal aspects of Schutz’s phenomenology of the musical experience cannot be considered independently of their interrelations with the equally important, albeit under-examined, corporeal, and spatial aspects. Concepts from Nietzsche’s early aesthetics are recruited to fulfil this task. Second, the analysis challenges Schutz’s dismissal of space in his theory of music perception. Lastly, it reveals the crucial, yet implicit, role of the body and space in his key examination of the intersubjective phenomenon he terms “making music together”. By presenting the above arguments, the paper aims to draw out the implicit dimensions of Schutz’s phenomenology of music and thereby enrich his influential account.     

The Retentional and the Repressed: Does Freud's Concept of the Unconscious Threaten Husserlian Phenomenology?

This paper investigates the claims made by both Freudian psychoanalysic thought and Husserlian phenomenology about the unconscious. First, it is shown how Husserl incorporates a complex notion of the unconscious in his analysis of passive synthesis. With his notion of an unintentional reservoir of past retentions, Husserl articulates an unconscious zone that must be activated from consciousness in order to “come to life.” Second, it is explained how Husserl still does not account for the Freudian unconscious. Freud's unconscious could be called, in phenomenological terms, a repressed retentional zone that differs from both near and far retention. Finally, an analysis is offered for the significance of this psychoanalytic argument for phenomenology. Does phenomenology provide a complete account of the psychical life of the subject without the Freudian unconscious? Does phenomenology suggest, as is often done, that Freud's “discovery” of the unconscious is a fantastical invention? Or, does the Freudian unconscious represent a true stumbling block for phenomenology?