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Jan Patočka
Czech philosopher (1907–1977) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jan Patočka (Czech pronunciation: [ˈpatot͡ʃka]; 1 June 1907 – 13 March 1977) was a Czech philosopher. Having studied in Prague, Paris, Berlin, and Freiburg, he was one of the last pupils of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Freiburg he also developed a lifelong philosophical friendship with Husserl's assistant Eugen Fink. Patočka worked in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for almost his entire career, but never joined the Communist Party and was affected by persecution, which ended in his death as a dissident spokesperson of Charter 77.
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Jan Patočka | |
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![]() Jan Patočka (1971) Photo: Jindřich Přibík | |
Born | (1907-06-01)1 June 1907 |
Died | 13 March 1977(1977-03-13) (aged 69) |
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Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Continental philosophy Phenomenology "Asubjective phenomenology" / Existential phenomenology "Negative Platonism" |
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Patočka was a prolific writer and lecturer with a wide range of reference, contributing much to existential phenomenology as well as the interpretation of Czech culture and European culture in general. From his Czech collected works, some of the most notable have been translated to English and other major languages. These include the late works Plato and Europe (1973) and Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History (1975), in which Patočka developed a philosophy of history identifying the Socratic-Platonic theme of the care of the soul as the basis of "Europe".