PATOČKA'S SOLVITUR AMBULANDO: modern science and human existence

Abstract

In this paper I engage with Jan Patočka's phenomenological reading of myth and tragedy as a way to consider human existence in our modern world. I suggest that Patočka's writing on myth and tragedy is relevant in arguing against the reductive tendencies of current scientific and technological thinking, which eliminate questions pertaining to the consideration of human experience and “humanity.” The scientific examination of human life cannot account for our own lived lives. In contrast, Greek tragedy can give us access to the drama of other lives and lead us to reflect upon our own.

Keywords:

• Patočka
• science
• Sophocles
• tragedy
• myth

Notes

Sophocles, Antigone 55–128, 945–46 (103). Hereinafter referred to as A in the text, followed by line number(s).

See, for example, Patočka, “Kulhavý Poutník Josef Čapek” 137–58, 139. Hereinafter, “Kulhavý Poutník Josef Čapek” [Limping Pilgrim Josef Čapek] is referred to as KP in the text, followed by page number. Where no printed translation was available of works cited, the English translation is my own.

This tension is also defined by Michel Foucault through the notion of “the empirico-transcendental doublet” – see Foucault 322. See also Heidegger's discussion on the knower and the known: Heidegger, “Wilhelm Dilthey's Research” 155. For a different way to reflect on this antinomy, see Baracchi 13–28.

Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity 22. Hereinafter referred to as TOM in the text, followed by page number.

Grotius Book I, X: 22.

Nietzsche Book III, §12.

For an early reflection on this problem, see Plato 18–36.

Husserl, Crisis of European Sciences §2.

Tallis, The Explicit Animal xi. See also idem, “Book Review” 3050–54.

See also Patočka, “Problém Počátku a Místa Dějin” 300.

See also Arendt 8, 9, 247.

Patočka, “Epičnost a Dramatičnost, Epos a Drama” 355–56. Hereinafter “Epičnost a Dramatičnost” [Epics and Drama] is referred to as ED in the text, followed by page number.

See Patočka, Plato and Europe.

For Patočka, éleos is lítost–soucit, where lítost can be translated as sorrow and soucit as either pity or compassion.

As above, phobos, for Patočka, is expressed by a double starch–hrůza that can be rendered either as fear or horror and dread.

“My boy, it's clear, you don't know what you're doing” (Sophocles, Oedipus the King 155–251, 1105). Hereinafter referred to as OK in the text, followed by line number(s).

Likewise, the role of drama is acknowledged by Kracauer. See Kracauer 305.

Sophocles, Sophocles I: Oedipus at Colonus 1224–26.

Patočka, “Umění a Čas” 306. For a similar insight, see Heisenberg.

Patočka, “Umění a Čas” 306.

See Husserl, Crisis of European Sciences, esp. appendices; idem, “Appendix VII” 379–83; idem, “Appendix I” 269–99.

See Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology; idem, Ontology; idem, “Time and Being” 1–24.

See Patočka, “‘Přirozený Svět’” 265–334; idem, “Subjektivismus Husserlovy Fenomenologie a Možnost ‘Asubjektivní’ Fenomenologie” 379–96; idem, “Subjektivismus Husserlovy Fenomenologie a Požadavek Fenomenologie Asubjektivní” 397–418; idem, “Autorův Doslov k Francouzskému Vydání Díla ‘Přirozený Svět Jako Filosofický Problém’” 367–78; idem, Body, Community, Language, World; idem, Heretical Essays.

Plato, “Apology” 38a.

Or, as we would say today, drama, in art, literature and film.