Body, Community, Language, World
Body, Community, Language, World

Author: Jan Patočka

Publisher: Open Court Publishing

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780812693591

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Body, Community, Language, World, here made available in English for the first time is Patocka's presentation of phenomenology as a living tradition - as a philosophical heritage that requires to be rethought and redirected in light of possibilities that it has itself uncovered. Jan Patocka lived for most of his adult life in Communist Czechoslovakia where he was at times banned from publishing or teaching. Mentor of Vaclav Havel, Patocka defied the regime as one of the spokespersons for Charta 77, and died in 1977, following two months of police interrogation.

Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History
Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History

Author: Jan Patočka

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13:

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"Finally available in English, this book is a challenging meditation on the deep tensions between nihilism and liberation which prevail at the core of the "problematicity" defining the historical condition of modern man. Patocka is the most important Czech philosopher of this century and one of the greatest names in the history of the phenomenological movement". -- Jacques Taminiaux Boston University

The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem
The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem

Author: Jan Patocka

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2016-08-15

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0810133636

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The first text to critically discuss Edmund Husserl’s concept of the "life-world," The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem reflects Jan Patocka's youthful conversations with the founder of phenomenology and two of his closest disciples, Eugen Fink and Ludwig Landgrebe. Now available in English for the first time, this translation includes an introduction by Landgrebe and two self-critical afterwords added by Patocka in the 1970s. Unique in its extremely broad range of references, the work addresses the views of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap alongside Husserl and Heidegger, in a spirit that considerably broadens the understanding of phenomenology in relation to other twentieth-century trends in philosophy. Even eighty years after first appearing, it is of great value as a general introduction to philosophy, and it is essential reading for students of the history of phenomenology as well as for those desiring a full understanding of Patocka’s contribution to contemporary thought.

In Marx's Shadow
In Marx's Shadow

Author: Costica Bradatan

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2010-03-19

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0739136267

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Despite its key role in the intellectual shaping of state socialism, Communist ideas are often dismissed as mere propaganda or as a rhetorical exercise aimed at advancing socialist intellectuals on their way to power. By drawing attention to unknown and unexplored areas, trends and ways of thinking under socialism, the volume examines Eastern Europe and Russian histories of intellectual movements inspired - negatively as well as positively - by Communist arguments and dogmas. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue, the collection demonstrates how various bodies of theoretical knowledge (philosophical, social, political, aesthetic, even theological) were used not only to justify dominant political views, but also to frame oppositional and nonofficial discourses and practices. The examination of the underlying structures of Communism as an intellectual project provides convincing evidence for questioning a dominant approach that routinely frames the post-Communist intellectual development as a 'revival' or, at least, as a 'return' of the repressed intellectual traditions. As the book shows, the logic of a radical break, suggested by this approach, is in contradiction with historical evidence: a significant number of philosophical, theoretical and ideological debates in post-Communist world are in fact the logical continuation of intellectual conversations and confrontations initiated long before 1989.

Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age
Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age

Author: Edward F. Findlay

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0791488063

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In 1977 the sixty-nine-year-old Czech philosopher Jan Patočka died from a brain hemorrhage following a series of interrogations by the Czechoslovak secret police. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he had been arrested, along with young playwright Václav Havel, for publicly opposing the hypocrisy of the Czechoslovak Communist regime. Patočka had dedicated himself as a philosopher to laying the groundwork of what he termed a "life in truth." This book analyzes Patočka's philosophy and political thought and illuminates the synthesis in his work of Socratic philosophy and its injunction to "care for the soul." In bridging the gap, not only between Husserl and Heidegger, but also between postmodern and ancient philosophy, Patočka presents a model of democratic politics that is ethical without being metaphysical, and transcendental without being foundational.

The Self and the Sonnet
The Self and the Sonnet

Author: Rajan Barrett

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2010-09-13

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 1443825417

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The Self and the Sonnet is an interdisciplinary study which considers the sonnet, a near eight hundred year old form, and looks at the historical meanderings and the popularity of the form among cultures that are far removed from the location of its origin in Italy. The book tracks the notion of the self from its Platonic beginnings to the Postmodern, using insights from Charles Taylor, Brian Morris and Calvin O. Schrag so as to work out a model of the self. Jan Patočka’s phenomenological notions of the self and Chaos Theory are important cohesive elements in the composition of this model. A limit point in Mathematics is a point that is not in the set around which all the points cluster. The book looks at the self from the limit points of the body, mind, world and language. It analyzes sonnets which predominantly show a tendency to one of these limit points. However, it keeps in mind the other limit points as possibilities of a comprehensive analysis. The motivation for this body of research comes primarily from the notion of the sonnet being a form that initially exists along with the epic as canonical writers of literary epics also write sonnets. The historic and narrative moment of self in sonnet form calls for a questioning of both the self and the sonnet. The book tries to address the questions: ‘What changes in the notion of self prompt the origin and persistence of the sonnet across cultures?’ and ‘Why and how is this form compatible with a self that is postmodern and global?’ The Anglo-American sonnet, for the most, is addressed but cultures and their attendant forms are also addressed when considering the sonnet. The Arabic zajal, the Persian ghazal, the Chinese sonnet and the Korean Sijo-sonnet are forms that are touched upon along with the Indian postcolonial versions like the forms of the sonnet in Modern Indian Languages such as Bangla, Gujarati and Marathi.

The Heresies of Jan Patocka
The Heresies of Jan Patocka

Author: James Dodd

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 081014588X

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A nuanced reflection on the meaning and resonance of Patočka’s philosophy Foregrounding the turbulent political and intellectual scene in Czechoslovakia following the Prague Spring in 1968, James Dodd explores the unity of philosophy, history, and politics in Jan Patočka’s life and legacy. Dodd presents Patočka as an essential philosopher of modern concepts—such as freedom, subjectivity, and history—and also as an interpreter of prominent thinkers such as Husserl and Heidegger. Dodd outlines the phenomenology that Patočka, as a late pupil of Husserl and Heidegger, crafted in response to the classical model before turning to his philosophy of history, which was oriented around the problem of Europe and the care for the soul. Finally, Dodd examines Patočka’s role as a dissident intellectual and one of the principal voices of the Charter 77 human rights movement until his death in March 1977. By situating Patočka’s thought in relation to classical phenomenology and to the political and historical conditions of Central Europe, Dodd illuminates the enduring impact of this key thinker of the twentieth century.

Traversing
Traversing

Author: Susanna Trnka

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2020-05-15

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1501749234

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Traversing is about our ways of seeing, experiencing, and moving through the world and how they shape the kinds of people we become. Drawing from concepts developed by two phenomenological philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Jan Patočka, and putting them in conversation with ethnographic analysis of the lives of contemporary Czechs, Susanna Trnka examines how embodiment is crucial for understanding our being-in-the-world. In particular, Traversing scrutinizes three kinds of movements we make as embodied actors in the world: how we move through time and space, be it by walking along city streets, gliding across the dance floor, or clicking our way through digital landscapes; how we move toward and away from one another, as erotic partners, family members, or fearful, ethnic "others"; and how we move toward ourselves and the earth we live on. Above all, Traversing focuses on tracing the ways in which the body and motion are fundamental to our lived experience of the world, so we can develop a better understanding of the empirical details of Czech society and what they can reveal to us about the human condition.

George Mackay Brown and the Philosophy of Community
George Mackay Brown and the Philosophy of Community

Author: Timothy C Baker

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2009-06-23

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0748640932

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In this book Timothy C. Baker situates George Mackay Brown's work within a broad literary and philosophical context to articulate how his novels engage with the question of community.

Confronting Totalitarian Minds: Jan Patočka on Politics and Dissidence
Confronting Totalitarian Minds: Jan Patočka on Politics and Dissidence

Author: Aspen E. Brinton

Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press

Published: 2021-05-01

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 8024645378

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The Czech philosopher Jan Patocka not only witnessed some of the most turbulent politics of twentieth-century Central Europe, but shaped his philosophy in response to that tumult. One of the last students of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, he inspired Václav Havel and other dissidents who confronted the Communist regime before 1989, as well as being actively involved in authoring and enacting Charter 77. He died in 1977 from medical complications resulting from interrogations of the secret police. Confronting Totalitarian Minds examines his legacy along with several contemporary applications of his ideas about dissidence, solidarity, and the human being’s existential confrontation with unjust politics. Expanding the current possibilities of comparative political theory, the author puts Patocka’s ideas about dissidence, citizen mobilization, and civic responsibility into conversation with notable world historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and other contemporary activists. In adding a fresh voice to contemporary conversations on transcending injustice, Confronting Totalitarian Minds seeks to educate a wider audience about this philosopher’s continued relevance to political dissidents across the world.