On Life and Death: The Conception of Human Being and of the Human Task in Jan Patočka’s Wartime Manuscripts
Abstract
The paper provides a survey of Jan Patočka’s philosophical project elaborated in wartime manuscripts, so far unedited, and advances an argument as to what extent his philosophical standpoint differs from the positions of his two teachers Husserl and Heidegger. According to Patočka, human beings project their meaningful world due to a fundamental task with respect to which one can either prove oneself or fail.
However, the fulfilment of this task is not identical with tak-ing up one’s individuality and finitude; rather, Patočka characterizes it as a relationship to an infinite life that grounds every and each individual existence. In order to return to this infinity, a mere „pluck-ing“ out of the conscious life is not sufficient; what is needed is a spiritual transformation that shows the non-objective character of the world, while at the same time maintaining human consciousness.