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Socrates’ final argument in the Protagoras is premised on the surprising identification of the pleasant with the good and argues that virtue is the “art of measurement” that can be easily taught to the Many. The view that virtue can be taught is also espoused by Socrates elsewhere, notably in the Phaedrus. However, while the Protagoras identifies virtue with the art of calculating the greatest pleasure, which is identified with the greatest good, in the Phaedrus virtue is shown to consist in the ceaseless search for the good. I argue that the picture of virtue presented in the Protagoras is in agreement with that of the Phaedrus in that the Protagoras depicts the first stage of the process of learning genuine virtue, which is outlined as a whole in the Phaedrus. The argument of the Protagoras then works as a protreptic: it teaches an elementary way of thinking about the ends of one’s actions and opens up the way toward genuine virtue.

The article investigates the intrinsic interconnectedness of European culture with philosophy acting as its self-reflexive pillar, the foundations of which many derive from Plato. It is in the philosophical interpretation of Plato’s work that the author uncovers the analogous structures that represented one of the greatest challenges of the philosophical tradition: the implicit polemical relationship to another, different starting point, that precedes the explicit polemos – a war. The author recalls the influential attempts of European thought in the 20th century that tried to break free from a state of total confrontation. In the 1990s, however, he catches up with the Platonic interpretation, as is demonstrated by the detailed description of the “war of methodologies.” If in the background there is a connection with self-reflection in the process of the self-constitution of philosophy and the selfcomprehension of Europe, then according to the author the “Platonic revolution” is an effort to come to terms with the unprocessed implicit epistemological preformative, war. A possible solution is provided by the author‘s distinction between agon and polemos.

In the concluding part of Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, Jan Patočka thematizes the 20th century and claims that this entire period is a century of war. This paper identifies the main arguments supporting this thesis and examines Patočka’s reflections on how this essential character of the 20th century can be overcome. The article primarily focuses on revealing the ontological-anthropological framework that underlies Patočka’s argumentation, including the idea that polemos is the law of the world. More concrete analyses then demonstrate the problematic elements of Patočka’s concept.

Amidst the human tragedy represented by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ideological and historical justifications for the conflict as they have been framed by Russian president Vladimir Putin themselves call for a philosophical response and ethical critique. Putin's political theological justification for the war, grounded in the commonalities of language, historical affinity, and ecclesial unity, which he posits constitute Ukraine and Russia as one people and justifies the imposition of Russian imperial authority over the Ukrainian state, is philosophically problematic and ultimately totalitarian. In contrast, the phenomenological philosophies of Edith Stein and Jan Patočka, whose political philosophies were shaped in spiritual resistance to similar ethnic and ideologically driven imperialisms of the twentieth century, offer resources for understanding and critiquing the world-historical interpretations of the meaning of civilization, peoplehood, and national destiny which drive Putin's foreign policy, and which have important ethical and political implications far beyond the Ukraine/Russia conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the idea of 'play' as a metaphor to understand the world as an always presupposed frame of all experiences and appearances. A large part of it is devoted to the work of Eugen Fink, who developed a notion of the world as play, as a speculative idea beyond phenomenology. This article argues firstly in favor of such an effort to understand the world as play, as an alternative to onto-theological metaphysics. However, it argues secondly, that a stronger and more convincing concept of play can be found by elaborating on the views of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jan Patočka. Gadamer discussed 'play' as a metaphor for art, while Patočka worked on the notion of 'world' as a phenomenological idea that serves as a frame for all experiences. A combination of these two ideas may result in a better alternative to both Fink's approach and to traditional onto-theological metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the value and lessons of the late baroque for Dalibor Vesely as an example of the role that it played for many architectural educators in the 1970s and 1980s. It shows the specific roots of Vesely's interpretation of the late baroque in the context of the influence of his mentors, the art historian Vaclav Richter, and the phenomenologist Jan Patočka whose thought positioned the late baroque in relationship to the crisis of modernity. It then shows how Vesely used the late baroque in his studio and seminar teaching in the 1980s at the University of Cambridge school of architecture, not only to develop his students' historical and theoretical critique of modern architecture, but as a model for contemporary design practice, finding in examples of late baroque churches, such as Johann Michael Fischer's renovations of the church at Zwiefalten Abbey (1739–65), an architecture of ambiguity, complexity, sensuality, imagination, and holism that could inspire contemporary architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martin Koci es quizás uno de los exponentes más recientes de lo que ha sido denominado el “giro teológico” de la fenomenología contemporánea. Koci presenta una lectura desde una teología que recurre a la fenomenología para intentar dar razón de un Cristianismo posterior a la cristiandad. Aunque la referencia a Kierkegaard sea ineludible, Koci alude, sobre todo, a las implicaciones que supone la vivencia del Cristianismo en una época posmoderna. O, dicho más específicamente: una época post-cristiana. Para llevar a cabo su tarea, el teólogo checo establece un diálogo con uno de sus compatriotas más relevantes del siglo pasado: Jan Patočka. En su texto más reciente, Christianity after Christendom: Heretical Perspectives in Philosophical Theology, Koci amplía su diálogo con Patočka haciendo partícipes en la conversación a una serie de filósofos, conocidos todos por sus posturas heterodoxas o “heréticas” en lo que se refiere al Cristianismo. Entre estos se encuentran Jean-Luc Nancy, Gianni Vattimo, John D. Caputo y Richard Kearney. Junto con cada uno de estos autores, Koci asume el reto de hacer “la pregunta obvia, pero que en gran medida ha sido descuidada: ¿qué viene después del fin del Cristianismo?”.

Platonismo negativo es quizás uno de los textos de Jan Patočka que más atención ha recibido en el ámbito académico. Su importancia es pocas veces puesta en duda. Con todo, hoy nos encontramos lejos de agotar las implicaciones que conlleva la interpretación que hace de Platón el filósofo checo. Particularmente, la concepción de la Idea platónica que se deriva de la lectura patočkiana, no parece haber sido suficientemente confrontada con lo dicho por el mismo Platón en sus diálogos. Según el autor, parece existir una afinidad particular entre lo dicho por Diotima en su discurso en el Banquete y la interpretación patočkiana de Platón que, hasta el momento, no parece haber recibido suficiente atención en la literatura académica sobre estos dos autores. De manera similar a lo que plantea Patočka con la experiencia de la libertad como puerta que abre a la consideración de la Idea, Diotima ancla el reconocimiento de lo bello en sí con la experiencia de lo bello en el mundo. Este “anclaje” se daría gracias al camino en ascenso planteado en la scala amoris, en el que eros, siendo amor de lo bello, asume una función integradora en el interior del amante. Justamente, esta función integradora llevada a cabo por eros parece dar razón del vínculo que establece Diotima entre aquello que es bello en sí mismo y la virtud verdadera que el amante engendra al experimentarlo.

Opening up to the world and individual reflective experience are fundamental pillars in the phenomenological approaches of Landgrebe, Fink, and Patočka. In the special case of Landgrebe and his constructive phenomenology, he seeks to address the problems of metaphysics through the clarification of meanings through the phenomenological interpretation of questions of idealism. For Landgrebe, strict knowledge coincides with the absolute, which arises from the possibilities of meaning or sense. The recovery of metaphysics, innate in the human being, requires evaluating the metaphysical origin of the birth of man. In this way, Landgrebe proposes to initiate the phenomenological path by seeking the path to the absolute in the depths of subjectivity. This path leads us to face the intersubjectivity of the world as objective and the primacy of the "you" over the "I". Landgrebe's original metaphysical phenomenology seeks to overcome the dualism between consciousness and being, and between knowledge and belief. The analysis of the intentional structure of the horizon reveals an absolutist concept that goes beyond man and his knowledge, representing both the basis and the link between them. Movement becomes the unique and original connection between subject and world.

Jan Patočka elabora una crítica a la subjetividad absolutizada y cerrada sobre sí misma que constituye para él el núcleo de la crisis, no sólo de la ciencia, sino también de la cultura europea y que la fenomenología de Husserl no logra superar. Para ello, Patočka despliega, de la mano de Platón, la idea del alma abierta, de una subjetividad que no necesita buscar una salida hacia la realidad porque consiste justamente en esta apertura al ser; en primer lugar, al ser propio, que está siempre frente a la posibilidad de salir de sí y elevarse hacia horizontes que la trasciendan o de perderse en la caída de la clausura narcisista sobre sí misma. Esta idea de una racionalidad sustentada no en la subjetividad absoluta de la modernidad, sino en una constitutiva apertura al ser, que Patočka rastrea hasta los orígenes del pensamiento griego y, por tanto, en la raíz de la tradición occidental, es para él la clave de una comprensión de la existencia como cuidado del alma, que tiene profundas implicaciones éticas y políticas para el contexto presente

Jan Patočka elabora una crítica a la subjetividad absolutizada y cerrada sobre sí misma que constituye para él el núcleo de la crisis, no sólo de la ciencia, sino también de la cultura europea y que la fenomenología de Husserl no logra superar. Para ello, Patočka despliega, de la mano de Platón, la idea del alma abierta, de una subjetividad que no necesita buscar una salida hacia la realidad porque consiste justamente en esta apertura al ser; en primer lugar, al ser propio, que está siempre frente a la posibilidad de salir de sí y elevarse hacia horizontes que la trasciendan o de perderse en la caída de la clausura narcisista sobre sí misma. Esta idea de una racionalidad sustentada no en la subjetividad absoluta de la modernidad, sino en una constitutiva apertura al ser, que Patočka rastrea hasta los orígenes del pensamiento griego y, por tanto, en la raíz de la tradición occidental, es para él la clave de una comprensión de la existencia como cuidado del alma, que tiene profundas implicaciones éticas y políticas para el contexto presente.

Should we approach the lived experience and/or understand the other with the sense of things? If this is the case, how are we to treat the human experience par excellence? Paradoxically, Edith Stein gives a fresh meaning to the Husserlian term “leibliche Selbstgegebenheit.” In contrast to Max Scheler’s account, she develops the “persönliche Note” criterion of authenticity. And against Maetin Heidegger’s existential philosophy, a concern for human existence itself resonates. Based on these three dimensions, this article discusses the idea of “the lived experience” according to Edith Stein, that is, the human experience contemplated by the humanities.

In this study, the author investigates, analyzes and evaluates the philosophically and politically important, interactive role played by criticism in forming and maintaining the concept of a democratic republic, and which played a fundamental role in the philosophical and political works of T. G. Masaryk, Emanuel Rádl, Jan Patočka, Ladislav Hejdánek and Erazim Kohák. The study first describes Masaryk’s concept of a democratic republic, which originated in his philosophical, social and political criticism of the time, and then continues with Rádl’s criticism of nationalism, also linked to Masaryk; Patočka’s criticism of Masaryk’s and Rádl’s philosophy and politics; and Hejdánek’s and Kohák’s criticism of Patočka’s criticism. Philosophical criticism played an irreplaceable role both in the initial sustaining of Masaryk’s and Rádl’s concept of a democratic republic and in its renewal and modernization. In the conclusion, the critical discourse of the authors discussed in the study is summarized.

Socrates' final argument in the Protagoras is premised on the surprising identification of the pleasant with the good and argues that virtue is the "art of measurement" that can be easily taught to the Many. The view that virtue can be taught is also espoused by Socrates elsewhere, notably in the Phaedrus. However, while the Protagoras identifies virtue with the art of calculating the greatest pleasure, which is identified with the greatest good, in the Phaedrus virtue is shown to consist in the ceaseless search for the good. I argue that the picture of virtue presented in the Protagoras is in agreement with that of the Phaedrus in that the Protagoras depicts the first stage of the process of learning genuine virtue, which is outlined as a whole in the Phaedrus. The argument of the Protagoras then works as a protreptic: it teaches an elementary way of thinking about the ends of one's actions and opens up the way toward genuine virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that even if Popper's and Patočka's interpretations of Plato originate in philosophical and intellectual traditions that have nothing or very little to do with each other, they share a common target, that is, modern biopower, which culminated in twentieth-century totalitarianism. If we examine Popper's and Patočka's interpretations of Plato from a biopolitical angle, it is possible to view them in a new light, that is, as two different, even opposing, intellectual and philosophical approaches to the very same tragic events that European culture and politics experienced in the twentieth century. Despite the radically divergent results of their readings, Popper and Patočka share a starting point, that is, the effort to outline a genealogy of European cultural and intellectual history in the light of Plato. The first section of this article explains why and to what extent Popper's and Patočka's interpretations can be considered genealogical readings. The second section elaborates on their different approaches to the relationship between justice and power in Plato. The third section concentrates on the relationship between Plato and twentieth-century biopower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the theme of spectrality, the givenness of the other who remains here after departure as a ghost. It explores how this spectrality functions in Plato’s funeral oratory in the Menexenus dialogue. In the first part, the article discusses J. Patočka’s account of the specific givenness of the departed, which is experienced as a privation of a former intersubjectively intertwined life. The deceased other causes a twofold crisis. On the one hand, with the death of the other also comes the withering of part of myself, for I am unable to realise possibilities dependent on his or her presence. On the other hand, the meaning of the other’s project, which becomes institutionalised through participation in the events and re-formation of the world, is endangered if no one is willing to take on and realise this meaning as one’s own. The second part of the article discusses how Socrates’ oratory addresses this crisis through specific temporality of the speech, one in which the past provides the present with a paradigm for appropriate civic action which is to be imitated in the future. In this context, he creatively uses the concept of shame to induce an attitude of responsibility for the polis, whose greatness is grounded in the virtuous deeds of spectrally present ancestry.

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.

The ancient concept of the underground is mainly associated with the outdated triadic cosmology. In modernity, some authors such as Dostoevsky and Nietzsche have dialectically referred to the underground as an alternative to the principle of reason or ground. Others—such as Hegel or Heidegger—have more radically linked this dialectic to the abyssal unground, recalling Boehme and Hölderlin. However, all these modern dialectical constellations of ground, underground, or unground have failed to provide a philosophical vision that would overcome the aporetic relationship between metaphysical grounding and phenomenal appearance. They have left aside the reality of the Marian underground, overshadowed by the Spirit and Cross and marked by Christ's descent into the underground, by which the powers of the ancient underground were apocalyptically drawn into the liturgical celebration of a persecuted Church. In this article, I will link Jan Patočka's phenomenology of the underground experience and Zdeněk Neubauer's Marian metaphysics to prove that, in the apocalyptic horizon of suffering and persecution, the Sophianic and Marian revelations spell out the created form of Trinitarian being, that becomes a miraculous rescue of all relations and phenomena as the ground shining from within the underground, and the underground within the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comprendre: Revista Catalana de Filosofía is the property of Herder Editorial S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Should we approach the lived experience and/or understand the other with the sense of things? If this is the case, how are we to treat the human experience par excellence? Paradoxically, Edith Stein gives a fresh meaning to the Husserlian term “leibliche Selbstgegebenheit.” In contrast to Max Scheler’s account, she develops the “persönliche Note” criterion of authenticity. And against Maetin Heidegger’s existential philosophy, a concern for human existence itself resonates. Based on these three dimensions, this article discusses the idea of “the lived experience” according to Edith Stein, that is, the human experience contemplated by the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

In in the second half of the 1940s, Jan Patočka emphasized the essentially negative character of human existence. He thus found himself in the neighborhood of Sartre’s existentialism, Heidegger’s philosophy of being, and Hegel’s dialectic, and at the same time in opposition to schools of thought which either completely reject the substantive use of “the nothing,” such as Carnap’s positivism, or relativize it, like Bergson. It is the latter polemic, Patočka’s with Bergson, which is discussed in this article. The concept of negativity in Patočka basically refers to the idea that human existence is defined by a capacity to adopt a distance toward what is pre-given, be it the reality of the physical world or the established habits and rules of a particular society. Negativity qua distance has in Patočka an absolute character. It is this claim that he defends in his critique of Bergson. The article attempts to reconstruct Patočka’s position. I claim that the wager on absolute negativity does not make Patočka a nihilist, but a philosopher of a negative holism, and, in a sense, even a moralist. Above a reconstruction of Patočka’s stance, I spell out some reservations focused especially on the systematic meaning of Patočka’s recourse to negativity. I suggest that negation is an indispensable part of a more complex existential structure Patočka is aiming at. The terms he uses for this structure include “thirst for the absolute,” “thirst for reality,” “restlessness of the heart” and “desire.” To translate these allusions onto a general plan, it is useful to talk about the capacity to establish differences that matter. As general as it seems, this turn of phrase can grasp both Patočka’s emphasis on negativity, and his emphasis on the absolute, the latter – nevertheless – not residing in a distance from being, but in differences established, maintained and abandoned by ourselves within being.

Copyright of Arete Journal of Political Philosophy / Arete Politik Felsefe Dergisi is the property of Arete Journal of Political Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article looks at the foundations of Jan Patočka’s philosophy of negative Platonism. On the one hand, it pursues the negative-Platonic question of the essence of metaphysics and, on the other, Patočka’s analysis of the ontic-ontological difference as the fundament of the whole negative-Platonic project. The author points out that the expression of Patočka’s borderline position between metaphysics and philosophy is the ambiguousness of negative Platonism, with which, however, the negative-Platonic requirement of a clear ontic-ontological difference does not correspond. He seeks a possible solution to this problem in Patočka’s study “Nadcivilizace a její vnitřní konflikt” (“Supercivilisation and its Inner Conflict“), especially in the notion of “large distinctions”. He understands this as a historical archetype of the difference from later texts devoted to negative Platonism, interpreted as chorismos.

This essay opens the question of the political genesis of fractal topologies from monolithic fronts of power and privation. The political front can no longer be encapsulated as a continuous norm‐provisioning ground. Emerging frontier zones of violence jettison anachronistic centralized fronts of law and procedure in their wake. The political frontier is exemplified by the current fusion of warfare and lawfare — the extrajudicial violence of racialized and militarized policing, the right to look and inspect and the murder and carceralization of minorities, migrants, and cognate others. Police power, as the surviving repository and legatee of the historical wreckage of sovereignties past, is the anarchy that has captured the state in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares Comenius' usage of the terms unum, verum and bonum in his metaphysical writings both with the expression of the image of the Trinity in De civitate dei by Aurelius Augustinus and with the concept of existence as three basic movements in the philosophical work of Jan Patočka. The purpose of the text is to show, despite the differences in historical periods, language and life experience, the possible similarity or connection of the vision that Augustine, Comenius and Patočka mediate in their works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]