Abstract
In this chapter, I explicate fundamental elements of Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence. After introducing Patočka’s project to renew the ontological concept of movement, I reconstruct his description of subjective movement to outline the structure of the world of a (moving) existence. I focus on the ontologically decisive part of Patočka’s concept: his radical reinterpretation of Aristotle’s concept of movement as a possibility being realized through the “lens” of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein. I demonstrate as crucial the question of the source of possibilities without which movement would be impossible. Identifying this source with the so-called “Seinsverständnis,” I specify how, to fully understand Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as the core of his late asubjective phenomenology, existence is to be interpreted as the place of this understanding. Patočka specifically interprets existence as disclosed primarily due to time: We are opened by time to time and the three ecstases thus become three fundamental dynameis of human existence.
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Notes
- 1.
Fundamentally, this appearing of things through existence also means that they, literally, appear in their own being only thanks to existence.
- 2.
- 3.
“The key … lies in the concept of lived corporeity” (Patočka 1998: 155). “Here again the phenomenon of human corporeity might be pivotal since our elevation out of the world … is an individuation of our subjective corporeity” (Patočka 1998: 178). The body will be analysed in more detail in Chap. 10.
- 4.
For the sake of brevity, I shall put aside the problem, quite an important problem indeed, of the different versions of the concept of the movement of existence. Rezek rightly points out this diversity. Cf. esp. Rezek (2010b, 2010c). A concise and unified interpretation of the concept of the movement of existence is offered by Kouba (2007). Cf. also Hagedorn (2006).
- 5.
Rezek interprets Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as “topological” and methodologically based on the correlation “movement – referent” (cf. Rezek 2010a: esp. 126–131).
- 6.
“Aristotle is our starting point and inspiration” (Patočka 1998: 154).
- 7.
Karfík rightly remarks that Patočka’s interpretation of this idea of Heidegger is rather ambivalent. Sometimes, Patočka acknowledges Heidegger’s standpoint as non-subjectivist; see esp. Karfík 2008: 57, n. 11.
- 8.
As is rightly emphasized, if only with different accents, also by Barbaras 2007: esp. 67–68, 86–87.
- 9.
As a matter of fact, a similar idea is expressed already in Patočka’s habilitation. See above, Chap. 3.
- 10.
“Patočka takes from Aristotle merely a verbal definition and fills it with a new content” (Rezek 2010a: 128).
- 11.
Cf. Barbaras 2007: 72–76. Barbaras, however, accentuates other dimensions of Aristotle as influencing Patočka’s concept.
- 12.
As already mentioned, in the last years there has been a considerable interest in Patočka’s interpretation of Aristotle. Regarding the problem in question, see esp. Duicu 2014: 79–102, 141–184.
- 13.
- 14.
“Possibility as an existential is the most primordial and the ultimate positive ontological determination of Da-sein” (Heidegger 1996: 135).
- 15.
What I do find required, however, is to ask the question of how to approach, or encounter, those beings without violating them.
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Ritter, M. (2019). Movement of Existence. In: Into the World: The Movement of Patočka's Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 104. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23657-1_8
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