Jan Patočka

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Jan Patočka (1971)
Photo: Jindřich Přibík

Jan Patočka (born June 1, 1907 in Turnov , Austria-Hungary , † March 13, 1977 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak philosopher .

Life

Jan Patočka was one of four sons of the classical philologist and pedagogue Josef Patočka. After graduating from high school in Prague, he enrolled at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in 1925 in the subjects of Slavic Studies , Romance Studies and Philosophy, went to the Paris Sorbonne in 1928 , where he first met Edmund Husserl . In 1931 he wrote his dissertation with Jan Blahoslav Kozák and taught philosophy from 1932, but in the same year went to study at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin and from 1933 studied phenomenology with Husserl and Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg . There he also met Eugen Fink , with whom he was to become a lifelong friend and who was Husserl's assistant at the time. In 1934/35 Patočka was one of the co-founders of the German-Czech Cercle philosophique de Prague , to whose Czech secretary he was also elected, the German side represented Ludwig Landgrebe .

In 1936 he completed his habilitation with the work Přirozený svět jako filosofický Problem (The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem), the first systematic phenomenological study in the Czech language, which was accordingly influential on Czech philosophy. In 1937 Patočka took over the position of the responsible editor of the philosophical journal Česká mysl (The Czech Spirit). In 1938 he became a member of the Paris Institute International de Philosophy .

After the closure of the Czech universities in 1939 as a result of the occupation by Nazi Germany , Patočka taught at a grammar school and published philosophical textbooks. In 1945 he returned to the Charles University, which he had to leave under the communist dictatorship in 1949 for political reasons.

Patočka worked as a translator from German and French at the Masaryk Institute, the Pedagogical and Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences . He also gave lectures in private rooms, and in the 1960s as a guest lecturer in Germany, France and Belgium.

In 1968, during the Prague Spring , Patočka was appointed professor at Charles University. However, he was forced to retire in 1972. In 1971 he received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden , but he was not allowed to leave the country. In 1973 he traveled to an international philosopher's congress in Varna without permission , whereupon he was banned from traveling and being banned from publishing. His writings were published in samizdat and numerous students continued to attend his lectures in private homes.

In 1976 Patočka organized a successful petition for the release of the members of the underground band Plastic People of the Universe . In 1977 Patočka became the spokesman for Charter 77 together with Václav Havel and Jiří Hájek . After a meeting with the Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel , he was repeatedly interrogated by the StB . After one of these interrogations he was hospitalized and died of apoplexy .

Patočka's grave in Prague

Jan Patočka was buried in the St. Margaret Cemetery in Břevnov . His funeral became an event of anti-communist resistance. Intellectuals from all over the country came together to pay their last respects to Jan Patočka. Meanwhile, employees of the State Security were sitting on the graves around to film the mourners. The state security drowned out the prayers and speeches at the coffin with the noise of motorcycles and a helicopter.

Works

So that Jan Patočka's estate did not fall into the hands of the Czechoslovak authorities, it was copied (especially by Věra Jirousová) and brought to Vienna. There it was documented and scientifically processed. In addition to numerous samizdat publications before 1989, there is a German-language edition. A Czech complete edition has been published since 1990.

German-language publications

  • Selected writings . Published by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1987-1992.
    • Volume I: Art and Time . Edited by Klaus Nellen and Ilja Srubar. Introduction by Walter Biemel . 1987, ISBN 3-608-91460-9 , 597 pp.
    • Volume II: Heretical Essais on the Philosophy of History . Edited by Klaus Nellen and Jiri Nemec. Introduction by Paul Ricœur . 1988, ISBN 3-608-91461-7 , 497 pp.
    • Volume III: The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem. Phenomenological writings I. Edited by Klaus Nellen and Jiri Nemec. Introduction by Ludwig Landgrebe . 1990, ISBN 3-608-91462-5 , 319 pp.
    • Volume IV: The Movement of Human Existence. Phenomenological writings II. Edited by Klaus Nellen, Jiri Nemec and Ilja Srubar. Introduction by Ilja Srubar . 1991, ISBN 3-608-91463-3 , 650 pp.
    • Volume V: Writings on Czech Culture and History . Edited by Klaus Nellen, Petr Pithart and Miroslav Pojar. 1992, ISBN 3-608-91491-9 , 371 pp.
  • Eugen Fink and Jan Patočka. Letters and Documents, 1933–1977 . Edited by Michael Heitz and Bernhard Nessler. Alber, Freiburg and Munich / Oikumenē, Prague 1999, ISBN 3-495-47896-5 .
  • Jan Patočka. Texts, documents, bibliography . Edited by Ludger Hagedorn and Hans R. Sepp. Alber, Freiburg and Munich / Oikumenē, Prague 1999, ISBN 3-495-47962-7 .
  • From appearance as such . Texts from the estate, edited by Helga Blaschek-Hahn and Karel Novotný. Alber, Freiburg and Munich / Oikumenē, Prague 2000, ISBN 3-495-47904-X .
  • Other ways into modernity. Studies on the history of European ideas from the Renaissance to Romanticism . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-2846-5 .
  • Heretical essays on the philosophy of history (new translation). Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3518294543 .

Czech-language publications

  • Přirozený svět jako filosofickýproblemém (Lifeworld as a Philosophical Problem), Prague 1936
  • Aristotle , jeho předchůdci a dědicové (Aristotle, his predecessors and heirs), Prague 1963
  • O smysl dneška (About the Meaning of Today), Prague 1969
  • Kacířské eseje o filosofii dějin (Heretical Essys on Philosophy of History), Prague 1975 (self-published)
  • Negativní platonism (Negative Platonism), Prague 1990
  • Platon . Přednášky z antické filosofie (Plato. Lectures on ancient philosophy), Prague 1991
  • Tři studie o Masarykovi (Three Studies on Masaryk), Prague 1991
  • Evropa a doba poevropská (Europe and the post-European period). Prague 1992
  • Úvod do fenomenologické filosofie (Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy), Prague 1993
  • Tělo, společenství, jazyk, svět (body, community, language, world). Lectures 1968–69. Prague 1995
  • Sebrané spisy 1-20 (Collected Works 1–20). Oikumene, Prague (15 volumes were published by 2010).

literature

  • Armin Homp, Markus Sedlaczek (ed.): Jan Patočka and the idea of ​​Europe . MiOst, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-980808-31-9 .
  • Jacques Derrida: To give death. In: Anselm Haverkamp (ed.): Violence and justice. Derrida - Benjamin. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-11706-8 .
  • Helmuth Vetter (ed.): Lebenswelten. Ludwig Landgrebe, Eugen Fink, Jan Patočka . Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2003 (series of the Austrian Society for Phenomenology; Volume 9). ISBN 3-631-50137-4 .
  • Sandra Lehmann: The horizon of freedom. On Jan Patočka's existential thinking. Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2961-5 .
  • Filip Karfík: Becoming infinite through finitude. A reading of Jan Patočka's philosophy . Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-2866-3 .
  • Dalibor Truhlar: Jan Patočka. A Socrates between Husserl and Heidegger. Special publication of the University Center for Peace Research Vienna, 1996.

Web links

Commons : Jan Patočka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Eda Kriseová : Vaclav Havel. Poet and president. The authorized biography . Rowohlt, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-87134-012-X , pp. 123-124.
  2. ↑ Eda Kriseová: Vaclav Havel. Poet and president. The authorized biography . Rowohlt, Berlin 1991, p. 141.
  3. ↑ Eda Kriseová: Vaclav Havel. Poet and president. The authorized biography . Rowohlt, Berlin 1991, p. 140.
personal data
SURNAME Patočka, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Turnov
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1977
Place of death Prague