2. The Science of Λόγος and Truth—What “Things” Are
Martin Heidegger
The History of Thinking: Destruction
Neo-Kantianism
The Science of Λόγος and Truth
A Speaking Being
Categories
Ta Mathemata (Τἀ Μαθήματα)
The Space of Meaning
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
Epistemology and Ockham’s Razor
The Facticity of Dasein
The Idea of Facticity as Opposed to the Idea of “Man”: Zur Sache Selbst
Conclusion
3. Heretical Reading: With Her and Against Her
Hannah Arendt
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Human Nature
Human Facticity: A Study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man
The Human Condition
The Victory of Modern Scientific Nature
What Arendt Elides: The Great Mathematical Drama
Being and Appearing
The Punctum Archimedis
World Alienation
What Is a Thing?
Homo Faber Revisited
Life as the Highest Good
The Space of Thinking: The Gap in Time
Conclusion
4. The Matter of Philosophy—Human Existence
Jan Patočka
From Kosmos to Modern Science
Myths
A Background to Patočka’s Discussion: Change, Motion, and Movement
Galileo
The Problem of Mathematization
Res Cogitans and Res Extensa
Historical Human Existence
Formalization and the Human Sphere
The Movement of Human Existence
Situational Being
Socrates
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Meaning of Human Existence
The Problem of Relativism
The Problem of Responsibility
The Space of Meaning
Husserl—The Problem with Science
Heidegger—Dasein and the Scientific Framing of the Life-World
Arendt—The Political and Dasein
Patočka—Phenomenology and Questioning
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Philosophy begins with wonder, as Plato and Aristotle taught us. This book began with my own wondering, which led me to search for the meaning of the notion of “crisis” in the title of Husserl’s book The Crisis of European Sciences. I followed many paths, some of which I shared with my students in philosophy at Murdoch University. They taught me a lot and helped me to clarify some of the complicated issues we encountered together. They also taught me that one can speak about Husserl’s and Heidegger’s ideas without being entangled in their language; and, in turn, I keep teaching them to use simple, but not simplistic, language, which helps a lot in clarifying one’s own thinking. They are too many to name. I thank them all.
I owe a lot to Ivan Chvatík and to our many conversations, which help me to understand Jan Patočka.
For scholarly input, those who deserve my gratitude are also too many to name. Apologies to those I have forgotten. It was a long journey. I would like to thank, especially, Erika Abrams, Ingo Farin, Jan Frei, Chris Grant, Ludger Hagedorn, Pavel Kouba, Jeff Malpas, Dermot Moran, Steve Schofield, Ciaran Summerton, Laďka Švandová, Lucy Tatman, and Anita Williams.
I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council for the 2010–2012 research project, Judgment, Responsibility, and the Life-World; and two Fellowships of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for Foreign Specialists Engaged in Bohemistic Studies, supporting my research in the Jan Patočka Archives in Prague (August–September 2007 and September–October 2010). I have also benefited from the support of Murdoch University, Australia; the Jan Patočka Archives at the Center for Theoretical Study at Charles University in Prague; and the Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
I would like to express my gratitude to anonymous readers of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Darja Zoubková and Hana Matysková, from the secretariat of the Center for Theoretical Study in Prague, for all their help when I worked at the archives; and to Urszula Dawkins for her patience with copyediting the manuscripts, while reining in my Slavic spirit whenever it wanted to produce novel forms of English.
For early guidance and continuing support, I wish to give a special thanks to Claire Colebrook and Horst Ruthrof. They have done much to help with my thinking. Last, I want to thank my daughter, Lenka, for her critical insights, and her tolerance, help, and love.
INTRODUCTION
BACK TO THE THINGS THEMSELVES?
In our opinion, Heidegger’s philosophy provided some extremely important prerequisites for a complete rethinking of phenomenology, chiefly inasmuch as it brought to light unnoticed ontological presuppositions in Husserl’s phenomenology. As however Heidegger’s own philosophy took a turn that allowed the theme of “appearing as such” to be dealt with exclusively in connection with the renewal of the problem of Being, Husserl’s problems have since then never been taken up again, though they do not seem to have been simply settled and done with but, on the contrary, rather to have deepened through new inquiries.
—Jan Patočka1
This book started as a puzzlement related to the title of Edmund Husserl’s book The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy.2