The Opening of the Phenomenological World: Donation or Understanding? On the Problem of Appearing as Such in the Work of Jan Patočka
2007
Abstract
In his philosophy, Patočka attempts a revival of phenomenology as an investigation of appearing as such. He elaborates his project of an a-subjective phenomenology, the aim of which is to free the phenomenal field from a metaphysical closure due to the construction of the transcendental suvjectivity.
The opening of the phenomenal field, the opening of appearing as such is in Patočka split between the donation of the sensible and the understanding of being, as complementary moments of being in the world. Phenomenology as the investigation of appearance as such remains a project reserved for the future, a project that Patočka did not know how to free from the figure of the world insofar as it is the ultimate foundation of appearing.