Patočkova raná filosofie umění Josl, Jan
Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philosophica et historica,
06/2016, Volume:
2015, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This essay analyses Patočka’s philosophy of art in the period before and during the Second World War. Since the philosophy of art in Patočka’s thinking is part of a broader philosophical debate, the ...first section of this essay introduces the main philosophical problems that Patočka was dealing with at this time. The second part of the essay introduces the place that art has in this broader philosophical context, from the point of view both of the artist and of the viewer. In any case, art for Patočka represents a historical force of spirit, that is, a reflection of a certain form of the lived world. The last two parts of this essay describe specific differences between art and other kinds of spiritual activity like philosophy, science, and religion, as well as the pre-reflexive form of these spiritual forces as represented in mythology. The author concludes that Patočka’s early philosophical thinking creates quite a coherent system in which art plays an important role.
Amoralism and jokes Josl, Jan
European journal of humour research,
06/2024, Volume:
12, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Is it possible to joke about everything? Are there topics that we should not joke about? Is it possible to say which jokes are good and which are wrong or are jokes simply beyond good and evil? This ...issue seems to be more pressing in today’s multicultural world. In this study I reason contrary to amoralism that there are some jokes that can be morally judged. In order to present my argument, I use the type and token distinction as well as the results of debate between Bartel and Cremaldi and Brandon Cooke’s arguments in the favour of amoralism in art in general. I argue that even though amoralism is right in the case of joke types as well as in the case of some joke tokens not all jokes are fictive utterances. Therefore, the study concludes that it is reasonable to morally assess certain joke utterances.
The study presented here stems from the interpretation of pop-art found in the work of Petr Rezek and Walter Biemel. According to these authors, we find in pop art procedures and forms linked with ...new types of art, such as film, the photograph, or comics, but without these works themselves being film, the photograph, or comics in the usual meaning of the word. The given form is instead reflected in these works. These authors similarly highlight that this is the case with the use of technology, which is used in pop art both on the level of content and in the form of production, and gives rise to the phenomenon of repetition. This repetition is not however the mere multiplication of things, but a reflection of technical reproduction itself. On the basis of both authors’ interpretations of pop art works, the study determines the moments that the phenomenology of mass art must explore. Specific emphasis is placed by the author on the transformation of our conception of the being of things. The solidity and impenetrability of things disappear and the medial, liquid moment of objects is accentuated. Both the thing and the work become a passage and a place of distribution. Our intentionality does not stop at the object itself, but is diverted further, to our own person in kitsch, to the human of flesh, to rational supercivilization, but alternatively to profit and commerce as well. Even though this character of mass culture is usually understood negatively in the phenomenological tradition, the author reaches the conclusion that what is presented in pop art is, instead of being a bad world, a different world.
The study presented here focuses on the transformation in the 1940s and 1950s of Jan Patočka’s interpretation of the relationship between Socrates and Plato. This shift is tracked in the context of ...Patočka’s dialogue with the philosophy of existence. While in the lectures from the 1940s and the climactic work from this period, Věčnost a dějinnost (Eternity and Historicity), Socrates – with his emphasis on subjectivity, human freedom and incompleteness – is seen in Patočka’s conception to be close to the main motifs of the philosophy of existence, in Negativní platonismus (Negative Platonism) Patočka’s position is already far from such an “existential Socraticism.” The text of the study shows that Patočka’s critical reception of the philosophy of existence is one of the historically important motives in the transformation of Patočka’s position between Eternity and Historicity and Negative Platonism.
To come up with a satisfactory explanation for the gradual shifts between artistic styles and eras in art and architecture would be like finding the holy grail of art history. Winckelmann, Riegl, ...Wölfflin, and Semper, for example, attempted to go beyond simple description of composition and theme in art, suggesting, instead, that changes in style could be explained by means of general principles. This step transformed art history from simple expertise into genuine scholarship. In his articles from the 1960s Jan Patočka sketched his own phenomenological conception of art history. He did so by frequent reference to Hegel and Heidegger. Nevertheless, Patočka's categorisation of art into periods of imitation and periods of style seems incompatible with his other categorisation of art history into the artistic and the aesthetic era. Moreover, his essays leave one question unanswered – namely, whether the difference between any two periods originates exclusively from various interpretations and cultural contexts or rather from more profound ontological reasons. In this article, I suggest that the critical reception of Ingarden's aesthetics in Patočka's essays from the 1970s deals with some of the problems of his previous conceptions of artistic styles and eras.
The Socratic theme of care for the soul expresses in Patočka’s late thought his desire to keep the understanding of human existence as a place of turn, metanoia, of struggle between authenticity and ...inauthenticity. This tendency not only goes against Heidegger and his late philosophy, but is also opposed to Patočka’s own earlier project of asubjective phenomenology as well. This essay argues, firstly, that the importance of subjectivity and existential dimension is still present in art and secondly, that art represents for Patočka sort of care for the soul. The argument has three stages. First, I demonstrate what Patočka means by soul or experience of soul and how we should understand the term ‘care.’ I argue that what Patočka understands under the concept of soul consists has freedom, krisis, and physis as its main features. The second part demonstrates that in Patočka’s view, these features are present in art. The last part compares art and philosophy as two kinds of care for the soul and demonstrates the limits of art as care of the soul. My conclusion is that art represents for Patočka a limited form of care for the soul compared to philosophy. However, according to Patočka, in current situation it is the only way of care for the soul that is left.
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