Europe and the Care for the Soul

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15260%2F22%3A73614831" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15260/22:73614831 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://aither.upol.cz/pdfs/ath/2021/02/04.pdf" target="_blank" >https://aither.upol.cz/pdfs/ath/2021/02/04.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5507/aither.2022.004" target="_blank" >10.5507/aither.2022.004</a>

Result language

němčina

Original language name

Europa als Sorge für die Seele

Original language description

In this paper, I offer a synthetic presentation of Jan Patočka’s account of the spiritual roots of Europe. On this account, the most fundamental principle of Europe’s spiritual life is the so-called care for the soul (epimeleia tés psychés). From the very beginning, Patočka argues, the principle had two forms: the Democritean and the Socratic-Platonic one. The Democritean was characterized by an unworldly contemplation of the unchangeable principles of the universe. In the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul, the contemplative element has only a subordinated role. At least as important was the ethical-political and the eschatological dimension. The ethical-political dimension centered around the idea of a just polis, in which “the philosophers will not have to die.” Key to the eschatological dimension was the question of the eternal destiny of the soul. In this eschatological vision, the soul acquired a new level of interiority and was set into relation to the fundamental moral order of good and evil. In the European spiritual history, the Democritean spiritual attitude prepared for a unilateral objectivist and depersonalized conception of the universe. By contrast, the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul paved the way for later European ethical-political and eschatological ideals. The loss of this latter form of the care for the soul is, Patočka argues, the ultimate root of the spiritual crisis of modern Europe.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

AITHÉR

ISSN

1803-7860

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

13

Issue of the periodical within the volume

26

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

60-77

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85130204261