Version: v1, Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/patocka-jan-1907-77/v-1
Article Summary
Patočka was a Czech philosopher, one of the last pupils of Husserl. From the mid 1930s he developed his own approach to philosophical problems of the life-world (Lebenswelt), its structures and human activities in it. After 1945 he expanded this theme to incorporate other phenomenological problems (movement, freedom, aesthetics). He also paid much attention to the history of philosophy since antiquity, particularly to Comenius. After 1972, when the Communist system deprived him of his academic position, he elaborated his philosophical concept of History in his ‘Heretical Essays’. He was one of the authors of the political manifesto of the Czechoslovak political opposition, Charter 77, and his name became a symbol of moral resistance against totalitarian power.
Zumr, Josef. Patočka, Jan (1907–77), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N070-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/patocka-jan-1907-77/v-1.
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