Existence and Negativity. The Relevance of the Patočka-Bergson Controversy over Nothingness
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F21%3A10435078" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/21:10435078 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=87UOFwVsIt" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=87UOFwVsIt</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jffp.2021.986" target="_blank" >10.5195/jffp.2021.986</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Existence and Negativity. The Relevance of the Patočka-Bergson Controversy over Nothingness
Original language description
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.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EF16_019%2F0000734" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000734: Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française [online]
ISSN
2155-1162
e-ISSN
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Volume of the periodical
29
Issue of the periodical within the volume
1-2
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
21
Pages from-to
27-47
UT code for WoS article
000731355800002
EID of the result in the Scopus database
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