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Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology pp 263–279Cite as

The Responsibility of the “Shaken”

Jan Patočka and his “Care for the Soul” in the “Post-European” World

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Part of the book series: Contributions To Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 61))

Abstract

In his late essays of the 1970s Patočka inquires into the essence of European civilization – its birth in Ancient Greece, its formation in Medieval Christianity, its success in producing modern natural science, and its fall in the world wars of the twentieth century. He asks what legacy old Europe has bequeathed to mankind in the post-European, globalized world. One of the main components of this legacy is the Christian religion. The paper attempts to explicitly reconstruct Patočka’s indeed very heretical formulation of this religion as introducing a wholly new era in world history.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. Jan Patočka, Plato and Europe, transl. P. Lom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

  2. 2.

    Jan Patočka, “Kapitoly ze současné filosofie” [Chapters from Contemporary Philosophy], in Sebrané spisy, sv. 1, Péče o duši I, ed. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Praha: Oikoymenh, 1996), p. 87.

  3. 3.

    Cf. Jan Patočka, “Několik poznámek o pojmu ‘světových dějin’” [A Few Remarks on the Concept of “World History”], in Sebrané spisy, sv. 1, op. cit., pp. 46–57; see French translation: “Quelques remarques sur le concept d’‘histoire universelle’” in Jan Patočka, L’Europe après l’Europe, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Lagrasse: Verdier, 2007), pp. 155–171.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., p. 51/162 (Czech/French).

  5. 5.

    Ibid., p. 55/169 (Czech/French).

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    Jan Patočka, “Kapitoly…,” op. cit., p. 98.

  8. 8.

    Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, ed. J. Dodd, transl. E. Kohák, (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 1996), p. 58.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 57.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., pp. 60–61.

  11. 11.

    Jacques Derrida, “Donner la mort,” in Jean-Michel Rabaté and Michael Wetzel (eds.), L’éthique du don. Jacques Derrida et la pensée du don (Paris: Métailié-Transition, 1992); The Gift of Death, transl. D. Wills (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

  12. 12.

    Published in French translation: Jan Patočka, “Le christianisme et le monde naturel,” transl. E. Abrams, in Istina, Vol. XXXVIII, no. 1, 1993, pp. 16–22.

  13. 13.

    Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays..., op. cit., pp. 95–118.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., p. 98.

  16. 16.

    Pindarus, Pythian Ode II, 72: “γένοι οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών.”

  17. 17.

    Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays..., op. cit., p. 98.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., pp. 98–99.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., p. 99.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., pp. 100–102.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., p. 99.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., p. 101.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 102.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p. 105.

  26. 26.

    Ibid.

  27. 27.

    1 Corinthians 1:20: “hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

  28. 28.

    Cf. Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays..., op. cit., pp. 106–107.

  29. 29.

    Cf. Jacques Derrida, op. cit., p. 102/109 (French/English).

  30. 30.

    Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays..., op. cit., p. 107.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., p. 110.

  32. 32.

    Cf. ibid., p. 115.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., p. 113.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 112.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 112–113.

  36. 36.

    Jan Patočka, Plato and Europe, op. cit., p. 1.

  37. 37.

    Martin Heidegger, “Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten,” in Der Spiegel, no. 23, 1976, p. 209. See English transl. by W. Richardson: “Only a God Can Save Us,” in T. Sheehan (ed.), Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker (Chicago: Precedent Press, 1981), pp. 45–67.

  38. 38.

    Jan Patočka, “‘Přirozený svět’ v meditaci svého autora po třiatřiceti letech,” in Přirozený svět jako filosofický problém, ed. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Praha: Československý spisovatel, 1992), pp. 249–250. See also French translation: “Méditation sur Le monde naturel comme problème philosophique,” in Le monde naturel et le mouvement de l’existence humaine, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 122–123.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 251/124 (Czech/French).

  40. 40.

    Jan Patočka, “Čtyři semináře k problému Evropy” [Four Seminars on the Problem of Europe], in Sebrané spisy, sv. 3, Péče o duši III, ed. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Prague: Oikoymenh, 2002), p. 403. See also French translation: “Séminaire sur l’ère technique,” in Jan Patočka, Liberté et Sacrifice. Écrits politiques, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Grenoble: Millon, 1990), p. 299.

  41. 41.

    Jan Patočka, “Několik poznámek…,” op. cit., p. 55; “Quelques remarques…,” op. cit., p. 168.

  42. 42.

    Jan Patočka, “Negative Platonism: Reflections concerning the Rise, the Scope and the Demise of Metaphysics – and Whether Philosophy Can Survive It,” in Philosophy and Selected Writings, ed. and transl. E. Kohák (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 175–206.

  43. 43.

    See French translation in Jan Patočka, Liberté et sacrifice…, op. cit., pp. 379–381.

  44. 44.

    Jan Patočka, “Negative Platonism...,” op. cit., p. 180.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., p. 181.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., p. 180.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 195.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., p. 188.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., p. 200.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., pp. 200–201.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., p. 199.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., pp. 202–203.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., pp. 199–200.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., p. 205.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., p. 206.

  57. 57.

    Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays..., op. cit., p. 134.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., p. 135.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., pp. 134–135.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., p. 134.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., p. 135.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., pp. 75–76.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., p. 76.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  69. 69.

    Ibid.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., p. 76.

  71. 71.

    Ibid.

  72. 72.

    Ibid., p. 98.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jan Patočka Archive, Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University/Czech Academy of Sciences, Jilská 1, 110 00, Praha 1, Czech Republic

    Ivan Chvatík

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Correspondence to Ivan Chvatík .

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  1. Rue Bichat 8, Paris, 75010, France

    Erika Abrams

  2. an Institute of Advanced Studies at Char, Center for Theoretical Study (CTS ), Zbudovska 3 / 761, Praha 4, 142 00 Pra, Czech Republic

    Ivan Chvatík

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Chvatík, I. (2011). The Responsibility of the “Shaken”. In: Abrams, E., Chvatík, I. (eds) Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 61. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9124-6_20

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