“It is certainly no accident that precisely here, in this region of continual threats to, and continual defence of one's own identity — whether personal, cultural or national identity — there is such a long tradition of the idea of truth, a truth for which one must pay, the truth as a moral value. One constantly runs up against this tradition, from Cyril and Methodius to Hus and Masaryk, Stefanik and Patocka”. This citation from a lecture entitled “Morality and Politics” (...) provides a brief sketch of the background to the thought of the current Czech president, Vaclav Havel.Though lacking any academic training in philosophy, Havel was strongly influenced by the ideas of the philosophy professor from Prague, and founder of Charta 77, Jan Patocka. Inspired by some of Patocka's last writings, in 1978 Havel wrote an essay on Charta 77 which was dedicated to Patocka. The title of this essay was taken from one of Patocka's central statements: Attempt to Live in the Truth. Patocka's influence is also clearly evident in `Letters to Olga', in his speeches as president and in his thinking on Europe.Havel's thought, via the thought of Patocka, must be situated within a dual tradition. On the one hand it is rooted in Czech history. Patocka had already in his early writings thematized the ideas of Thomas Masaryk. The work of Masaryk, who became the first president of the new Czech republic after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, is characterized by an awareness of the crisis of rationality, like in the later Husserl. On the other hand Havel's thought, again by way of Patocka, is rooted in a phenomenology that is primarily oriented toward Germany. Patocka is often regarded as the interpreter par excellence of the dialogue between Husserl and Heidegger.This article is based on a speech given by President Havel during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, in Geneva, March 16, 1998. (shrink)

This guest column amounts to a conversation between two of the most crucial Soviet bloc dissidents about developments since the 1989 overthrow of communismin their part of the world. They agree that a “creeping coup d’état” is underway in which not only the government administrations of their countries have changed but also their systems of governance—and changed for the worse. “It is not,” they agree, “what the democratic opposition spent twenty-five years fighting for.” Their apprehension is that, under new forms, (...) the old authoritarian impulses are returning to East-Central Europe as well as to Russia. (shrink)

In The Economics of Good and Evil, Sedlacek challenges widely-held beliefs about economics and culture by tracing the study and themes of economics throughout history.

This paper deals with the political philosophy of Václav Havel, mainly its relation to ethics and what Michel Foucault called governmentality. Besides using his analytical framework, Foucault’s politics are engaged with to highlight similar trajectories of two intellectuals dealing with related dilemmas of ethics and politics. As a dissident of communist Czechoslovakia Havel, developed a profound critique of modernity, but also discovered technologies of the self, exclusive to dissidents, which empowered them in their moral struggle against the regime. (...) The Velvet Revolution in 1989 ascended Havel to the presidency of the republic, a position from which he quickly embraced and disseminated neoliberal governmentality. The final section deals with Havel’s use of human rights in the later years of his presidency, being a justification for military interventions and comparing them to Foucault’s conceptualisation of rights. Human rights discourse is the culmination of Havel’s lifelong quest for the ethical foundation of politics and it is the source of most difficulties and potentialities associated with this project. (shrink)

This article examines Václav Havel's unconventional route to democracy. At the core of the enquiry is an analysis of the role his Absurdism played in the development of his thought and activism. The essay illustrates how a typically literary, non-democratic intellectual orientation sustained Havel in his struggle for democratic political change against the abuses of really existing socialism. Yet, Havel's thought did not stop there; he eyed Western liberalism critically as well. Springing from his Absurdist sensibility was (...) a vision of democracy that was neither wholly liberal nor socialist, yet quite practical. By making a case for reconsidering ideas that typically fall outside the purview of democratic theory, this article also suggests the possibility of critically rethinking democracy itself. (shrink)

Examining the nature of Václav Havel's 'postmodernism,' we suggest that his use of this ambiguous label can be best understood if interpreted outside the conventional binary framework of modern/postmodern philosophy, which does not sufficiently answer to the lingering crisis of foundational certainty in political theory. In our view, the Czech playwright-turned-politician offers not merely a less confining sense of what it means to be 'postmodern,' but his commitment to moral political action also lends itself to overcoming some of the (...) limitations of contemporary postmodern theorizing by reentering the depreciated terrain of ontology. Specifically, we argue that an assessment of Havel's brand of postmodernism yields a rich interpretive harvest when read through ontological lenses. Indeed, Havel's theoretical posture serves as an instructive example of what political theorist Stephen K. White has called a 'felicitous weak ontology.'. (shrink)

Examining the nature of Václav Havel's 'postmodernism,' we suggest that his use of this ambiguous label can be best understood if interpreted outside the conventional binary framework of modern/postmodern philosophy, which does not sufficiently answer to the lingering crisis of foundational certainty in political theory. In our view, the Czech playwright-turned-politician offers not merely a less confining sense of what it means to be 'postmodern,' but his commitment to moral political action also lends itself to overcoming some of the (...) limitations of contemporary postmodern theorizing by reentering the depreciated terrain of ontology. Specifically, we argue that an assessment of Havel's brand of postmodernism yields a rich interpretive harvest when read through ontological lenses. Indeed, Havel's theoretical posture serves as an instructive example of what political theorist Stephen K. White has called a 'felicitous weak ontology.'. (shrink)

The paper considers the legacy of Václav Havel in regard to civil disobedience and dissident action. The paper frames its analysis on the long-standing debate Havel undertook with the Czech author Milan Kundera. Ultimately the paper argues that the nuance to Havel’s optimism, as it emerges against Kundera’s more pessimistic position, regarding dissident action is a timely and important response with great value for contemporary global challenges.

Volume 20, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 54-70.

This article makes a case for considering Václav Havel’s political theory of the nature of dissent as more politically grounded than that of his mentor Jan Patočka. Against the criticism of Havel, which describes him as a less rigorous repeater of Patočka's ideas, this paper demonstrates how Havel appropriated Patočka's idea that the dissident is, similarly to a World War I trench soldier, fighting in a contemporary front in a demobilized war. However I argue that in (...) class='Hi'>Havel's thought, the understanding of dissent takes on a more practical and useful complexion than that of Patočka. This paper will explain and explore Havel’s concept of the power of the powerless, which is his key concept for defining the importance of dissidence, arguing that it is an idea that shares many similarities to Patočka's depiction of the power of dissent; however, the power of the powerless is a move past Patočka's thought in its attempt to make a practical liveable dissent. (shrink)

This essay is a memorial tribute from one member of the Common Knowledge editorial board to another. Adam Michnik, a cofounder of the first dissident organization in East-Central Europe, writes about the details and the symbolic importance of his first meeting, in 1978 on Mt. Snĕžka, with Václav Havel, coorganizer of Charter 77. From his insider’s perspective, the author retells the history of dissent in communist Europe from that time until the Velvet Revolution and Havel’s election as president (...) of Czechoslovakia in 1989. He also assesses the impact of Havel’s work as a playwright and antipolitical essayist, but the emphasis of the essay falls on how Havel the man dealt with the disappointments he endured in political office, including the passage of “lustration” laws and the election of Václav Klaus as prime minister. The organizing principle of this essay is the distinction made by the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka between “great history” and “small history.” In periods of greatness, the Czechs led European civilization toward the path it would subsequently take; at other times, they withdrew into the “banality of provincialism.” This tribute to Havel ultimately argues that, after many decades of provincial Stalinism, Havel brought Czech history back to the path of greatness on which T. G. Masaryk had set it in the first part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The Heideggerian roots of the philosophy of Vaclav Havel.

This book explores the influences on the thought of Václav Havel and how Havel develops a unique political philosophy from these. This is informed from the phenomenological tradition. The book situates this philosophy among current debates in liberalism and agonism.

This paper examines the political significance of discursive activity in the private sphere in the thought of Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel, and Victor Klemperer. Against criticisms of Arendt which claim that she pays too much attention to the public sphere and consequently misses the importance of the private sphere in her analysis of political action, this paper highlights important insights in Arendt’s writing on family and friendship and the ability of these relationships to act as havens where discourse can (...) thrive. What emerges from the analysis is a rich agonistic discourse ethics. The paper employs the respective thought of Havel and Klemperer to highlight Arendt’s work on the political significance of private virtues for promoting an awareness of responsibility. This position is then defended against the criticisms of discourse ethics offered by Chantal Mouffe. (shrink)

The author seeks here to link Havel’s well-known dramatic output with his visual poetry, which is far less known. The notion of the double bind, the author argues, is a predominant trope of Havel’s oeuvre. By applying Grelling’s paradox to Havel’s visual texts, the author illustrates the techniques Havel uses to produce logograms whose visual representation contradicts the verbal message conveyed by them.

A decade after the fall of Communism in Europe, the Czech Republic'smembership in the European Union is still a matter of a relatively shortwaiting period of 4 years. Not so the imagination of this membership andthe creation of a political concept created to promote this goal: thespecific Central European policy initiated by Thomas G. Masaryk andrevitalized by Václav Havel. Despite the deep differences in thepolitical thought and philosophical orientations of both Presidents, notto mention the historic rupture of 41 years (...) of Totalitarianism, theirperceptions of Europe as an Imagined Community are identical. (shrink)

The paper clarifies Havel’s perception of post-democracy through his various writings and speeches, in comparison with the concepts of post-democracy as proposed by C. Crouch, J. Rancière, R. Rorty, S. Wolin, J. Habermas, and Ch. Mouffe. Consequently, Havel’s critique of the then Western parliamentary democracy and the very essence of his notion of post-democracy will be thoroughly illuminated. The historical and intellectual circumstances that shaped his thinking on the topic will be analysed as well. Some misinterpretations of (...) class='Hi'>Havel’s thinking that have emerged in the meantime will also be clarified. (shrink)

What is the persuasive basis for the doctrine of universal human rights - rights that pertain to all human beings, regardless of national, racial, or religious affiliation? This essay offers some reflections on the subject by considering the contrasting approaches of two thinkers: Vaclav Havel, the playwright, essayist, human rights advocate, and onetime President of Czechoslovakia; and Henri Bergson, the once influential French philosopher and apostle of creative evolution, unfortunately now often forgotten.

This essay, written in memory of the Chinese astrophysicist and dissident Fang Lizhi, reexamines the period in Fang's life when he was vice president of the University of Science and Technology of China and, because of his activities as an educational and political reformer, came to be dubbed “China's Andrei Sakharov.” It also retells, from the perspective of an insider, the dramatic narrative of Fang's year with his wife, Li Shuxian, living in the US embassy in Beijing following the Tiananmen (...) Square demonstrations and subsequent massacre. But the special focus of this overview of Fang's career is on his development as a thinker on questions of politics and human rights. Though Fang never returned to China and, while living in the United States, kept his distance from dissident movements, he continued to develop intellectually in ways that made him, in later life, China's Václav Havel. (shrink)

A critical study of the philosophy and political practice of the Czech dissident movement Charter 77. Aviezer Tucker examines how the political philosophy of Jan Patocka (1907–1977), founder of Charter 77, influenced the thinking and political leadership of Vaclav Havel as dissident and president. Presents the first serious treatment of Havel as philosopher and Patocka as a political thinker. Through the Charter 77 dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, opponents of communism based their civil struggle for human rights on philosophic (...) foundations, and members of the Charter 77 later led the Velvet Revolution. After Patocka's self-sacrifice in 1977, Vaclav Havel emerged a strong philosophical and political force, and he continued to apply Patocka's philosophy in order to understand the human condition under late communism and the meaning of dissidence. However, the political/philosophical orientation of the Charter 77 movement failed to provide President Havel with an adequate basis for comprehending and responding to the extraordinary political and economic problems of the postcommunist period. In his discussion of Havel's presidency and the eventual corruption of the Velvet Revolution, Tucker demonstrates that the weaknesses in Charter 77 member's understanding of modernity, which did not matter while they were dissidents, seriously harmed their ability to function in a modern democratic system. Within this context, Tucker also examines Havel's recent attempt to topple the democratic but corrupt government in 1997–1998. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics, scholars and students of Slavic studies, and historians, as well as anyone fascinated by the nature of dissidence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sacred and the Myth: Havel's Greengrocer and the Transformation of Ideology in Communist Czechoslovakia Marci Shore University ofToronto There is nothing a free man is so anxious to do as to find something to worship. But it must be something unquestionable, that all men can agree to worship communally. For the great concern ofthese miserable creatures is not that every individual should find something to worship that (...) he personally considers worthy ofworship, but that they should find someming in which they can all believe and which they can all worship in common; it is essential that it should be in common. And it is precisely that requirement ofshared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another.Fyodor Dostoevsky (306) Thus the conflict between the aims of life and the aims of the system is not a conflict between two socially defined and separate communities; and only a very generalized view (and even that only approximative) permits us to divide society into the rulers and the ruled. Here, by the way, is one of the most important differences between the post-totalitarian system and classical dictatorships, in which this line of conflict can still be drawn according to social class. In the post-totalitarian system, 1 64Marci Shore this line runs defacto through each person, for everyone in his or her own way is both a victim and a supporter ofthe system. Vaclav Havel (37) The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia arrived as a symbolically gentle conclusion to a half-century long era ofharrowing violence and totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. It was an era that saw the emergence ofNazism, Stalinism, and various indigenous fascisms, effecting a startling demonstration of the potency of ideology to co-opt minds and to wreak violence. The existence of communist ideology as a myth cohering communist totalitarian societies has been widely enough asserted. Yet this analysis can be taken to a further level through the aid oftwo paradigms. The first is a theory of human relationships developed by René Girard, which blends the disciplines ofliterary criticism, anthropology, philosophy, and political science. The second is a model arising from Vaclav Havel's parable of the greengrocer, told in "The Power ofthe Powerless" (1979). Girard's model posits the existence ofthe sacred, that locus of power that was once the pole of primitive religions. The core of the sacred is transfigured human violence. Girardian scholar Robert Hamerton-Kelly explains the process by which the sacred comes into being: Girard tells us that [the sacred] is a mendacious representation of human violence; "it is the sum ofhuman assumptions resulting from collective transferences focused on a reconciliatory victim at the conclusion of a mimetic crisis." The element of "the overwhelming" defines the Sacred...but its primary content is violence understood as being...outside ofnormal human control. (142) The sacred is established as the result of a crisis, one which finds resolution in the purging ofa relatively arbitrary scapegoat. Following this catharsis, three expressions sustain the sacred: myth, ritual, and prohibition. An examination ofthe evolution ofthese expressions in Czechoslovakia from the Stalinist period through normalization (the so-termed "posttotalitarian " period described by Havel in his essay) reveals much about the paradoxical dynamics ofideologically-based totalitarianism—which Havel defines most poignantly by suggesting that at the essence of ideological totalitarianism is the collapsing of the traditional dichotomy between victim and oppressor. The Sacred and the Myth: Havel's Greengrocer165 A Girardian deconstruction of Stalinism A political space for Stalinism developed in Czechoslovakia through the tumultuous period of Nazi occupation and the communist nature of anti-Nazi resistance. By the eve ofthe 1948 communist coup, the communists had claimed thirty-eight percent ofthe popular vote in free elections. Milan Kundera describes the coup as a usurpation of power "not in bloodshed and violence, but to the cheers of about half the population" (1986, 8). Defining this initial fanaticism was its honesty, especially among the younger generation. A young Stalinist later to become a reformist, and still later a dissident, Zdenek Mlynár, explains... (shrink)

An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its (...) future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future. (shrink)

Od pojednání o referenčních soustavách, o souřadnicových soustavách a o jejich transformacích přechází autor k mechanice Newtonově a k Maxwell-Lorentzovým rovnicím, jejichž řešením se zabývá. Ukazuje, jak bezvýsledné pokusy ourčení pohybu Země vůči éteru vedly k principu relativity v Einsteinově formulaci a objasňuje jeho geometrické zobrazení Minkowského čtyřrozměrným prostoročasem. Ukazuje dále, jaké změny způsobila Einsteinova teorie ve fyzice, aprobírá relativistickou elektrodynamiku a relativistickou mechaniku hmotných částic. Pozornost věnuje variačním principům relativistické fyziky a úloze principu relativity ve fyzice fenomenologické. Závěrem uvádí (...) základní idejeEinsteinovy obecné teorie relativity a význam prostoročasového kontinua v dnešní fyzice. (shrink)