Existence and Negativity: The Relevance of the Patočka–Bergson Controversy over Nothingness

Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 29 (1-2):22-47 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In in the second half of the 1940s, Jan Patočka emphasized the essentially negative character of human existence. He thus found himself in the neighborhood of Sartre’s existentialism, Heidegger’s philosophy of being, and Hegel’s dialectic, and at the same time in opposition to schools of thought which either completely reject the substantive use of “the nothing,” such as Carnap’s positivism, or relativize it, like Bergson. It is the latter polemic, Patočka’s with Bergson, which is discussed in this article. The concept of negativity in Patočka basically refers to the idea that human existence is defined by a capacity to adopt a distance toward what is pre-given, be it the reality of the physical world or the established habits and rules of a particular society. Negativity qua distance has in Patočka an absolute character. It is this claim that he defends in his critique of Bergson. The article attempts to reconstruct Patočka’s position. I claim that the wager on absolute negativity does not make Patočka a nihilist, but a philosopher of a negative holism, and, in a sense, even a moralist. Above a reconstruction of Patočka’s stance, I spell out some reservations focused especially on the systematic meaning of Patočka’s recourse to negativity. I suggest that negation is an indispensable part of a more complex existential structure Patočka is aiming at. The terms he uses for this structure include “thirst for the absolute,” “thirst for reality,” “restlessness of the heart” and “desire.” To translate these allusions onto a general plan, it is useful to talk about the capacity to establish differences that matter. As general as it seems, this turn of phrase can grasp both Patočka’s emphasis on negativity, and his emphasis on the absolute, the latter – nevertheless – not residing in a distance from being, but in differences established, maintained and abandoned by ourselves within being.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 93,867

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Jan Patočka.Ivan Chvatík - 2008 - In Aviezer Tucker (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 518–528.
The brave struggle: Jan Patočka on Europe’s past and future.Francesco Tava - 2016 - Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 47 (3):242-259.
La fenomenologia del mondo e della vita in Patočka nei primi anni Quaranta.Marco Barcaro - 2021 - Il Cannocchiale. Rivista di Studi Filosofici 1:127-150.
Existencia humana, mundo y responsabilidad en la fenomenologia de Jan Patočka.Iván Ortega Rodríguez - 2013 - Investigaciones Fenomenológicas: Anuario de la Sociedad Española de Fenomenología:247-264.
Václav Havel, Jan Patočka: The Powerless and the Shaken.Daniel Brennan - 2014 - Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 18 (2):149-168.
Jan Patočka and French Phenomenology.Karel Novotný - 2021 - Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 29 (1-2):1-21.
The Philosophy of Charter 77 Signatories.Aviezer Tucker - 1992 - Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-12-10

Downloads
21 (#727,311)

6 months
12 (#306,076)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jakub Čapek
Charles University, Prague

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references