Abstract
This article is a comparison of Patočka’s conception of myth and the writer role’s in culture, while considering the transition from mythos to logos. It uses Patočka’s concept of ‘resonance’ (ozvěnovitost) in both cases, that is, with mythos as a picture of the world in its entirety and also of the world of possibilities, as temporal world depicted in the writer’s works.
It traces the decline of mythic thinking with the ascent of philosophical reflection, and the shift from the past (myth) to the present (philosophy and art). Next to an analysis of Patočka’s reflections, the article places a hermeneutic understanding of reflection and the ‘demythologizing’ (Gadamer) as well as the conception of myth with the dimension of possibility (Ricoeur).
To identify and explain the ‘creative process of reality itself ’ in the writer’s work, the article uses both the tension inherent in mythical thinking and the concept of becoming in the poststructuralist thought.