Murdoch Philosophy Research Seminars Semester 2, 2009

Human Existence: Patočka’s Appropriation of Arendt

Lubica Učník (MU):

Abstract:

In order to show a different understanding of what it means to be human, in this paper, I will present Jan Patočka’s discussion of human existence. For Patočka, human existence is essentially historical and situational. His reflections proceed from Edmund Husserl's Life-world, Martin Heidegger’s explanation of the structure of human existence in Being and Time [Sein und Zeit] and Arendt's understanding of labour. According to Patočka, Heidegger’s exposition is predicated on a negative human relation to the world; we are originally inauthentic. Yet Heidegger forgets to take into account that Da-Sein is a doublet: animal rationale.

Patočka appropriates Arendt’s phenomenological account of the human condition in order to extend Husserl’s original insight embedded in Heidegger’s account of Da-sein in Being and Time to develop his own understanding of human existence.

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