Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age: Politics and Phenomenology in the Thought of Jan Patocka by Edward F. Findlay

Author: Edward F. Findlay
eBook Title: Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age: Politics and Phenomenology in the Thought of Jan Patocka
ISBN10: 0791454851
ISBN13: 978-0791454855
Language: English
Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr (September 1, 2002)
Category: Politics & Social Sciences
Subcategory: Philosophy
Size ePub vers.: 1294 kb
Size PDF vers.: 1532 kb
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In 1977 the sixty-nine-year-old Czech philosopher Jan Patocuka died from a brain hemorrhage following a series of interrogations by the Czechoslovak secret police. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he had been arrested, along with young playwright Vaclav Havel, for publicly opposing the hypocrisy of the Czechoslovak Communist regime. Patocuka had dedicated himself as a philosopher to laying the groundwork of what he termed a "life in truth."

This book analyzes Patocuka's philosophy and political thought and illuminates the synthesis in his work of Socratic philosophy and its injunction to "care for the soul." In bridging the gap, not only between Husserl and Heidegger, but also between postmodern and ancient philosophy, Patocuka presents a model of democratic politics that is ethical without being metaphysical, and transcendental without being foundational.