Abstract
The idea of “negative Platonism” as a way of understanding and overcoming metaphysics is central to Patočka’s most ambitious project. This project was never realized as a whole, but the fragments throw light on his later work. In particular, the text known as “Negative Platonism” can be read as a complement to the evolving phenomenology of the world, adumbrated in early writings and radicalized in later ones. The same text also contains a brief but highly suggestive hint at ways of comparing the Greek beginnings of philosophy with developments in other civilizations during the “Axial Age,” as well as reflections on themes that reappear in other contexts in Patočka’s Heretical Essays. The paper explores some of these interconnections.
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Notes
- 1.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, transl. C. Smith (London: Routledge, 1962), p. xviii.
- 2.
Jan Patočka, “Negativní platonismus. O vzniku, problematice, zániku metafyziky a otázce, zda filosofie může žít i po ní,” in Sebrané spisy, sv. 1, Péče o duši I, ed. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Praha: Oikoymenh, 1996), p. 309; [“Negative Platonism: Reflections concerning the Rise, the Scope, and the Demise of Metaphysics – and Whether Philosophy Can Survive It,” in Philosophy and Selected Writings, ed. and transl. E. Kohák (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 181].
- 3.
A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 1989).
- 4.
Jan Patočka, “Platón a Evropa,” in Sebrané spisy, sv. 2, Péče o duši II, ed. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Praha: Oikoymenh, 1999), p. 227; [Plato and Europe, transl. P. Lom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 88–89].
- 5.
Jan Patočka, “Negativní platonismus…,” op. cit., p. 324; [“Negative Platonism…,” op. cit., p. 195].
- 6.
Cf. Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion, transl. O. Burge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
- 7.
Jan Patočka, “Negativní platonismus…,” op. cit., p. 316; [“Negative Platonism …,” op. cit., p. 188].
- 8.
Ibid., p. 324/195 (Czech/English).
- 9.
See especially Jan Patočka, “Platón a Evropa,” op. cit., pp. 256–264; [Plato and Europe, op. cit., pp. 121–130.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 193/51 (Czech/English; quoting Petr Rezek’s title for the fourth lecture).
- 11.
Jan Patočka, “Negativní platonismus…,” op. cit., pp. 328–330; [“Negative Platonism…,” op. cit., pp. 199–200].
- 12.
Ibid., p. 333/204 (Czech/English).
- 13.
Domenico Jervolino, “Langage et phénoménologie chez Patočka,” in Études phénoménologiques, Vol. XV, no. 29–30, 1999, p. 62.
- 14.
Cf. Jan Patočka, “Negativní platonismus…,” op. cit., p. 330; [“Negative Platonism…,” op. cit., p. 200].
- 15.
Ibid., p. 331/201 (Czech/English).
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid., p. 334/204 (Czech/English).
- 18.
Jan Patočka, “Existe-t-il un canon définitif de la vie philosophique?” in Travaux du IX e Congrès international de philosophie, ed. R. Bayer, t. X (Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1937), p. 189; quoted from the Czech translation by F. Karfík: “Existuje definitivní kanón filosofického života?” in Sebrané spisy, sv. 1, op. cit., p. 104.
- 19.
See Jean Grondin, Le tournant herméneutique de la phénoménologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2003), p. 7.
- 20.
Renaud Barbaras, “L’être et la manifestation. Sur la phénoménologie de Jan Patočka,” in Revue de métaphysique et de morale, no. 4, 2006, p. 486.
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Arnason, J.P. (2011). Negative Platonism: Between the History of Philosophy and the Philosophy of History. In: Abrams, E., Chvatík, I. (eds) Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 61. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9124-6_17
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