Jan Patocka Quotes
Jan Patocka was a Czech philosopher and the most important Czech phenomenologist of the twentieth century. A pupil of Husserl and Heidegger and a long-time editor of the Prague Husserl Archive, he was twice removed from his university chair, first under the German occupation and then under the post-1948 Communist regime. The quotes below are attributed to Jan Patocka, organized by topic.
Jan Patocka on Freedom
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Attributed to Jan Patocka:
“The dissident is the one who lives in truth.”
Jan Patocka on Mind
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Attributed to Jan Patocka:
“The care of the soul is the inheritance of Greek philosophy and Christian Europe.”
Jan Patocka on Nature
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“Modern man lacks a unified conception of the world . He lives in a dual world: in his environment, which is naturally given to him, and, at the same time, in the world which since the beginning of the modern era has been created for him by sciences founded upon the principle that the laws of nature are, in essence, mathematical. The non-unity which has thus come to penetrate our entire life is the true source of the spiritual crisis we are going through today.”
Jan Patočka, cited in: Paul F.H. Lauxtermann, "Kant, Goethe, and the Mechanization of the World-Picture." in: Schopenhauer’s Broken World-View. Springer Netherlands, 2000. p.9 -
“Modern man lacks a unified conception of the world . He lives in a dual world: in his environment, which is naturally given to him, and, at the same time, in the world which since the beginning of the modern era has been created for him by sciences founded upon the principle that the laws of nature are, in essence, mathematical. The non-unity which has thus come to penetrate our entire life is the”
Jan Patočka, cited in: Paul F.H. Lauxtermann, "Kant, Goethe, and the Mechanization of the World-Picture." in: Schopenhauer’s Broken World-View. Springer Netherlands, 2000. p.9
Jan Patocka on Politics
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Attributed to Jan Patocka:
“Europe is the project of the examined life made political.”
Jan Patocka on Time
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Attributed to Jan Patocka:
“Modernity is the age of objectivity that has forgotten the mystery of the human.”
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Attributed to Jan Patocka:
“History begins where the natural world is shaken by questioning.”