The Ethical Impulse in Patokas Phenomenology

Focus Pragensis VIII (2008) 2556

The Ethical Impulse in Patokas Phenomenology

Phenomenology, Ethics and Politics IVN ORTEGA RODRGUEZ 1
To Krzysztof Sitarz

Introduction
In the last years, Patokas thought has been given its due place in philosophical and political discussions, and he has been acknowledged as one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. Within phenomenological circles, his idea of an asubjective phenomenology and his theory of the movements of existence are closely and thoroughly studied. Likewise, his ethical and political thought has been attentively studied, in so far as it can give inspiration about how to propose ideals for public life in increasingly pluralistic societies. Patokas relevance lies also in that his thought is a philosophy of resistance to the oppressor, where the intellectual, in a vital quest for the truth, defies the established powers. Patokas thought is also a praxis of resistance to oppression. Patoka in fact was an intellectual and a moral example for Czech dissidents, especially for Vclav Havel, whose ideas are to a great extent inspired by Patokas thought.
1 I want to express my gratitude to the Fundacin Ramn Areces [Ramn Areces Foundation] for its support in this research program on the philosophy of Jan Patoka at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas. This research is being carried out under the guidance of Professor Dr. Miguel Garca-Bar, within the context of a research program on the philosophical foundations of the idea of solidarity. This article can be considered the result of the research so far accomplished. All possible defects are exclusively my responsibility.

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Our aim in this article is to show how ethics and politics are already present in Patokas first philosophy. The study of appearing as such, of the world disclosed by it, and of human existence in this world makes Patoka defend certain theses about man and world which lead him to affirm that the question for meaning and truth belongs to the very dynamism of human existence. Thus, in our view, Patoka gives a possible solution to a problem inherent to phenomenology and existential philosophy, already indicated by authors like Ludwig Landgrebe: namely, the difficulty of how to deal with morals from the standpoint of phenomenology understood as philosophy of existence.2 This article consists of two parts, besides this introduction and the final remarks. Firstly, we present Patokas asubjective phenomenology, within which his theory of the movements of human existence is proposed;3 thus, we present the philosophical foundations upon which Patoka presents philosophy of existence in such a way that it is shown to be permeated from the beginning with a moral and political impulse. The second part will be dedicated to showing how the moral and political dimensions are present within the very fabric of human existence; we will have to deal as well with the difficulties that can be opposed to Patokas views. Particularly, we will ask whether Patokas attempt to think ethics from the strict limits of phenomenology and philosophy of existence is really consistent, or whether another approach should be made. Above all we will have to consider whether the ultimately monistic thesis of Patoka concerning appearing, the world and existence can provide a sufficient account of responsibility in an absolute sense.

2 See the sixth chapter of L. Landgrebe, Philosophie der Gegenwart. Ullstein Bcher, West-Berlin 1958, pp. 125142.

Our presentation of Patokas theses is necessarily systematic and cannot fully take into account the authors intellectual evolution. We present his thought in phenomenology in the mature form it took in the 70s, when Patoka had developed his theses about human existence and about appearing as such. Nevertheless, a careful study would show that both themes and their interrelation can be traced back to earlier periods of his work, in a continuous effort to rethink phenomenology. I will deal with this point in my doctoral dissertation.

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A comparison with Lvinas will be rendered necessary, in so far as Lvinas represents a different position that can be taken when considering morals from the standpoint of the philosophy of existence: the path of leaving the limits of philosophy of existence and taking a pluralistic approach which, as Lvinas claims, is the only way of respecting otherness as such and, thus, of making responsibility possible. The question of the possibility of Patokas and Lvinas attempt will also lead us to the question of the real potential that the philosophy of existence has to propose a shared ethics in a pluralistic world.

1. Patokas objections to transcendental phenomenology, and asubjective phenomenology

1.1. The critique of transcendental phenomenology
As we have indicated, Patoka accepts that the phenomenological method is the best equipped to carry out a radical philosophical inquiry. However, Patoka does not fully accept Husserls understanding of phenomenology as a sort of idealism. This idealism claimed to take exact account of knowledge and rationality and with it the very disclosure of being, by describing the process of the constitution of the world to consciousness. This idealism is distinct from other versions in that the world is not simply taken as a creation of the mind. The world and its objects do appear as having their own entity, and are clearly distinct from consciousness, to which they appear notwithstanding. This consciousness is also transcendental intersubjectivity, as Husserl says in the fifth of his Cartesian Meditations. Intersubjectivity is a phenomenological datum, the world can only appear within horizons shared by the different conscious subjets, in such a way that the world is a common world. Patoka knows well that transcendental phenomenology is not equivalent to classic idealism, and even less to solipsism. Nevertheless Patoka, along with many of Husserls disciples, thinks that this idealism does not correspond to the original impulse of phenomenology. Patoka thinks that if we hold to the original intention, that is to say, to the fundamental principle of taking what is given in exactly the measure that it is

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given,4 then we cannot defend an idealistic philosophy, however different from other idealisms it may be. Patoka states that Husserls phenomenology ends up being idealistic because of theoretical presuppositions which cause the introduction of non-phenomenological constructions in the analysis. According to Patoka, Husserl misses his own discovery of appearing as such. The study of the phenomenon discloses the primordial fact of appearing. Before any thought, action or evaluation, something appears to me. However, Husserl assumes that analyzing the phenomenon as such means the analysis of appearing to me, to a subject full of contents, whose existence and certitude is guaranteed by the self-evidence of the cogito.5 In Husserl, then, the study of the phenomenon is not that of appearing in its originality, but an ontology of subjectivity. With this, we abandon the field of appearing and we confound it with the realm of what appears, repeating the same mistake as Plato and Descartes.6 The central point in Patokas criticism is, in our view, the consideration of the subject which is necessarily given in phenomenological analysis. To Husserl, this subject includes all his acts. All that can be related to consciousness, to what is lived, is absolutely given in the analysis of the Cartesian cogito with its certitude. On this basis, it can be stated that the phenomenon is ultimately founded on such subjectivity. To Patoka, it is not this full subjectivity that is given in phenomenological analysis, but only a subjective pole to which appearing is referred but upon which it is not founded.7 Appearing has its own entity8 and a thorough

This is the principle of all principles. See Ideen zu einer reinen Phnomenologie und phnomenologischen philosophie. Erstes Buch. Husserliana III/1, Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag 1976, p. 43.
5 See Die Subjektivismus des Husserlschen und die Forderung einer asubjektiven Phnomenologie, in Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz. Klett-Cotta, Vienna 1991, pp. 286309, especially p. 302. 6 See Juan Manuel Garrido, Appearing as Such in Patockas A-Subjective Phenomenology, in Philosophy Today, De Paul University, 51:2 (2007), 121136. 7 See for example [poch et rduction] in Papiers Phnomnologiques, translated by Erika Abrams. Jerme Millon, Grenoble 1995, pp.163210, especially p.169.

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phenomenological analysis must study it in itself. Patoka criticizes the way Husserl clings to the prejudice that the evidence of consciousness is a unitary entity. In his consideration of the first data, Husserl went beyond what was actually given by these data. The problem is not the indubitability of the very act of living, but that, with this, consciousness is taken as self-evident as a sort of unity encompassing all its moments. This unity is not individual consciousness, but transcendental consciousness, namely the ultimate horizon to which all that appears is referred. Thus, consciousness is taken as a sort of absolute entity to be analysed in reflection, in the realm of the immanent.9 In other words, when in Husserl life is affirmed10 as self-evident, this does not concern only the current act of living, the present evidence of being alive and conscious, but also all the determinations which we find in our living. They are all taken as equally self evident, and with this it is also assumed the evidence of the terrain: consciousness as a unitary entity or pre-entity. This is for Patoka a result of the introduction of theoretical theses foreign to the strictly phenomenological research starting from first data, which alone proceeds what can be inferred from those first data. As Patoka states:
Consciousness, Erlebnis, subjectivity, appears to itself in an immediate way, and makes appear everything else. The real, however, does not appear by itself, but has to be exhibited by virtue of Erlebnis () But there is something in this ontology significantly unsatisfactory. It presupposes reflection as an immediate act of self-perception without explaining its possibility. Others have already stated that this appeal to the evidence of

We write this term between quotation marks to indicate that appearing must not be taken as an entity in the ontological sense, as if it were a real object. As we will see, appearing has to be considered as distinct from what appears, as a non-real sphere, though, as we shall see, it discloses the world. Understood as what is given by itself, as opposed to simply the structural elements. This distinction is described in Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phnomenologie. Fnf Vorlesungen. Meiner, Hamburg 1986.
10 Life is always understood as conscious life, in the broad sense of being affected and/or referred to an object. This refers to a broad range of experiences, the ones classically described as those of the senses and of the intellect. 9

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Ivn Ortega Rodrguez inner experience as far as foundation is concerned, does not help much, but actually spoils the pattern of pure phenomenology as strictly scientific apprehension of the structure of the pure phenomena. 11

The subjectivist presupposition prevents Husserl from carrying out the phenomenological poch in a fully radical way.12 poch consists of interrupting the belief in the real existence of the world and its objects, not eliminating the contents as such, but leaving them in their pure appearing. poch is not doubting the existence of the world; this belief, which certainly supports everyday life as a basic thesis, simply ceases to be posed, so that all that is present to us can show itself under a different light. With this, a whole new field of research is opened, which is claimed to give account of the most fundamental principles that sustain every science and all knowledge, as well as every act in our life in the world. Husserls use of poch is however not radical enough, says Patoka. The interruption is not applied to consciousness, understood as a whole unity, a unitary entity. To Husserl, Patoka explains, if we interrupted the thesis of the existence of consciousness, then there would be no longer an absolute terrain from which, and on the grounds of which, the constitution of the world could be studied with safety.13 This limitation of poch is due to Husserls subjectivistic prejudice, which takes subjectivity as absolutely given with all its contents. Thus, the phenomenon, referred as it is to subjectivity, is necessarily founded on and constituted by it. To be firmly grounded, all the phenomena

11 I translate from the Spanish edition: J. Patoka, Epoj y reduccin, in El movimiento de la existencia humana, compiled by Agustn Serrano de Haro. Madrid, Encuentro, pp.4150. My italics. I have not translated the word Erlebnis (in Spanish, vivencia) since I cannot find an exact English term, it refers to the very act of living at each moment, in the sense that it is open to the world and refers to it, in such a way that it always somehow feels itself. 12 This is the main idea of the quoted text Epoj y reduccin, in El movimiento de la existencia humana, pp. 241250. German original: Epoche und Reduktion, in Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz, 415423. 13

See ibid., p. 249.

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need to be referred to absolute subjectivity. The phenomenological analysis must, then, clarify how phenomena are founded on subjectivity; it must redirect, reduce them to their subjective foundation. The main aim of phenomenology is, consequently, reduction. Therefore, poch is only a secondary tool subordinated to reduction. Otherwise the phenomena (and with them the world) would not be reduced and phenomenology would have no sense at all. On the contrary, Patoka thinks that poch can be universally and radically applied, and that this does not paralyse philosophical research. Radical poch discloses the pure structure of appearing as such and reveals that the true discovery of phenomenology is appearing and not its purported foundation. poch, and not reduction, is the main concept in phenomenology. Furthermore, a radical use of poch leads to a new, and for Patoka more accurate, understanding of existence in the world, of knowledge, and especially, as we will see below, of the configuration of rationality in an ever-unattained teleology towards truth, which always remains as a goal.

1.2. The asubjective phenomenology of Jan Patoka

a) Radical poch, appearing as such and the world According to Patoka, then, if we use poch without any subordination to other theoretical aims, we find that the analysis of phenomena allows no access to any absolute entity or pre-entity, but to the pure appearing of what appears, that is, to appearing as such. poch, radically considered, leaves us before (or, rather, within) the disclosure of the space of appearing in which subjectivity is no longer the absolute terrain to which what appears necessarily refers. Subjectivity is one of the essential moments of the structure of appearing (to whom it appears), the other two being the world and its contents (what appears) and the laws of appearing (how it appears).14 In this sphere of appearance, subjectivity is
14 See Ana Cecilia Santos, Die Lehre des Erscheinens bei Jan Patoka: drei Probleme, in Studia Phaenomenologica. Romanian Journal for Phenomenology VII (2007), pp. 303329, especially the pp. 304 and 310314.

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an essential pole, but referred to a world that has not been in any way founded on or constituted by subjectivity. The appearing of the world and its objects qua appearing is certainly referred to subjectivity, but this subjectivity shows itself as existing in a world to which it belongs:15
Perhaps the immediacy of the auto-donation of the self is a prejudice and the experience of the self has, like the experience of things, its a priori an a priori that allows the appearing of the self. Understood this way, poch is not the access to any entity or pre-entity, whether worldly or not, but precisely for this reason it is perhaps the access to appearing instead of [the access] to what appears, that is to say, to appearing itself. Thanks to the universality of poch it is also clear that, along with the self is the condition of the possibility of the appearing of the worldly the world as a proto-horizon (and not as a totality of realities) represents the condition of possibility for the appearing of the self.16

Liberated, then, from subjectivist prejudice, Patoka thinks that poch can and must be universally used, and this makes us study the subject as constituted within a world in which the subject appears as rooted. At the same time, this subjectivity rooted in the world lives in a natural world, the world of everyday life, shared with others. Therefore, it can be said that radical poch leads us to affirm a quite particular way of being in the world. This particular way consists of being rooted in the world as an a priori condition of subjectivity, and, at the same time, existing in a natural world that appears to a subjective horizon. Once we have outlined the general paradigm of how Patoka, to our understanding, presents human existence in the world, we will see in more detail how his theses are developed. We are first going to deal with the appearance of the world as a previous totality, and then we will ex15 A problem in Patokas conceptualization is the double status of subjectivity as a pole of appearing as such, to which the world is referred, and at the same time a part of what appears and a part of the world. We cannot deal with this problem in this paper. See Ana Santos, Vers une phnomnologie asubjective, in Renaud Barbaras (ed.), Jan Patoka: phnomnologie asubjective et existence. Mimesis, Paris 2007, pp. 4971, especially pp. 6769. 16

Epoj y reduccin, pp. 247248; Epoche und Reduktion, p. 420. My italics.

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plain the configuration of the natural world according to Patoka.17 In the description of Patokas theory of the configuration of the natural world, there will be also a description of the existential dynamism within the natural world. Once we have explained the basic Patokian notions of human existence within the world, we will be able to indicate the ethical root in Patokas phenomenology. b) The world as an all-encompassing totality As we have said above, radical poch discloses the world as the a priori condition of subjectivity. Appearing things are shown within horizons, internal and external 18 . These horizons are included one in the other in such a way that they all can be finally included in an all-encompassing horizon. This horizon is the world as an all-encompassing totality. In order to explain how is disclosed the world as the totality of things included in an all-encompassing horizon, Patoka makes use of the concept of Weltfge, taken from Eugen Fink.19
17 The theme and scope of this paper does not allow us to enter into the complexities of Patokas conceptualization of human existence and that to which it is open. Karel Novotn shows that up to three conceptualizations can be traced. The first one points to Heidegger and takes the opening as the understanding of Being and the opened as entity, or Being understood in a certain way. The second one refers to the philosophy of corporality and considers the disclosure of the world as the presentation of possibilities to an incorporated subject. These three conceptualizations are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, they all deal with human existence and its place in the world disclosed by appearing. We will center our attention on the conceptualization referred to Eugen Fink which, to our understanding, gives the clearest exposition of the basic lines of the problem of appearing and world in Jan Patoka. See Karel Novotn, Louverture du monde phnomnologique: donation ou comprehension? Sur le problme de lapparatre comme tel chez Jan Patoka, in Renaud Barbaras (ed.), Jan Patoka, Phnomnologie asubjective et existence, pp. 925. 18 See for example [Leons sur la corporit], in Papiers Phnomnologiques, pp. 53116, especially pp. 6370.

Universo y mundo del hombre. Observaciones a un planteamiento cosmolgico contemporneo, in El movimiento de la existencia humana, pp. 8592. For the original text in German, see Weltganzes und Menschenwelt, in Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz, pp. 257264.

19

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What first of all appears to us in our perceptions, are limitations that show the forms in which things are placed. Limitations are, each one separately, contingent; however, we cant eliminate a limitation without replacing it with another. Individual limitations, then, are contingent, but limitation as such is not. If there are always necessarily limitations when we perceive, then the idea of a totality which encompasses all limitations appears as necessary. This is in fact for Patoka the Kantian idea of absolute space or the Finkean concept of Weltfge.20 This totality is necessarily one and all-encompassing, since if not we would have again another limitation which could be integrated in a totality of a superior order and so on. Nevertheless, the fact that an all-encompassing totality is an unavoidable horizon when considering perception does not mean that this totality actually exists. At most we could say that it is impossible to think this totality as non-existent, but it does not mean that this totality in fact exists. Patoka tries to solve this problem with the help of the mutual foundation of the part and the whole. If we get to demonstrate the real existence of a part of the totality, then we will have demonstrated the existence of the all-encompassing totality. In other words, if a limitation of something is found as evidently existing, then the totality that encompasses this limitation is also necessarily existing.21 In order to demonstrate the existence of such a part, Patoka seeks to show the asubjective self-disclosure and self-attestation of a part of the world in its appearing in our perception. In our perception there

20 21

See ibid., pp. 8586.

It should be noted that here Patoka passes from phenomenology to philosophical phenomenology. The former deals with appearing as such, in its pure appearing, the latter tries to draw metaphysical conclusions from phenomenology. The problem of appearing and the world is, then, a problem in which phenomenology and philosophical phenomenology are implicated. It can be asked whether phenomenology and philosophical phenomenology can be really separated. Patoka himself, at the end of his life, thought that asubjective phenomenology needed an ontology. In our opinion, the consideration of appearing as such leads one to consider the world, and this last consideration cannot be coherently made without questioning what is disclosed as the world and whether it really exists.

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must be the presentation of something identifiable as a form, as something within limits, and this without our subjectivity playing any active role (which would once again raise the problem of idealism and the actual existence of the world outside us). This is possible, according to Patoka, by virtue of an asubjective phenomenology in which what appears gives account of itself exclusively from itself:
For any totality, whether it is an ulterior collection of parts, or a previous totality, the mutual foundation of the part and the whole is however valid; they are mutually presupposed. Therefore, if there is no direct access in experience to the whole, it is enough to know of it as a whole as such in order to have a right to affirm the meaning of part as independent from the subject. Such a right seems to be able to be shown in an asubjective phenomenology of perception that does not need to acknowledge the limit of perceptive auto-donation in immanence which takes place in apodictic self-perception, and that considers the meaning of perception, through twisted paths, as founded in the strictly worldly phenomena, and not in the subjective ones.22

c) The world as the natural world of ordinary life Thus, the world appears to us as separate and independent from subjectivity. However, we also know that the world appears as the natural world within which we carry out our everyday life. Patoka makes a careful analysis of the structure of the natural world, as well as of the existential dynamism deployed within it. It is in the careful consideration of these analyses where we can see the ethical impulse within Patokas first philosophy.

22 Ibid., p. 87. These twisted paths are not specified here. These are ways in which appearing as such reveals itself as constituting a web of references where subjectivity is one of the poles of this autonomous realm, but not its founder or constituter. The phenomenon shows itself to us and, in this showing, it is disclosed as a structure referred to us, but to which we are also caught and by which we are in a certain way co-constituted. Patoka tries repeatedly to explore this self-attestation of appearing as a non-subjective realm. See for example Epoch et reduction. Manuscript de travail, in Papiers Phnomnologiques. Jrme Millon, Grenoble 1995, pp. 163210.

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Patoka studies the natural world from the point of view of its structure and of its existential dynamism. The study of the structure of the natural world leads to the analysis of the referents, the study of existential dynamism leads to Patokas theory of the three movements of human existence. i) The referents of the natural world The fundamental referents of the natural world are the earth and the heavens.23 The earth is the immobile substrate upon which our activity is carried out. Upon the earth we move among things, and relate to them as well as to others. The earth is thus the bearer and the referent of all relations24 . The earth also appears as force and power, everything is in a certain way subordinated to the earth:
The earth rules the heights and the depth. It rules even over the components which are forces alongside it, even acting against it, though it is the earth that ultimately has power over them. For even a stream of water, even the ocean, is forced to cleave to it.25

The earth is not the only referent. Together with the essentially near referent of the earth, we find another referent correlative to this, which is essentially distant the heavens:
There is, however, yet another referent, one that is essentially distant, intangible, unmanageable by bodily touch, no matter how present it appears a referent to which all that is essentially beyond reach the heavens, the light, the heavenly lights and bodies, all that encloses our horizon without closing it in, all that constitutes the outside as something that constantly encloses us in an interior.26

23 Jan Patoka, The Natural World and Phenomenology, in Erazim Kohk, Jan Patoka. Philosophy and Selected Writings. The University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 239273, especially pp. 255257. 24 25 26

Idem, p. 255. Loc. cit. The Natural World and Phenomenology, p. 256. The italics are Patokas.

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The thus-structured natural world is also radically shared with others. In our ordinary life we are referred to the others in a space inhabited by me and others. In fact, Patoka states that we are in rapport with the world through the rapport with the others. The other, in fact, is made apparent and patent before myself since the individual always perceives himself as within a meaningful situation in which the self is already referred to, and appealed to by, the other. This essential contact with others in the natural world is what gives reality and density to life in the world:
Contact with the others is the very center of our world, endowing it with its most intrinsic content, but also its most important meaning, perhaps even all its meaning. It is only contact with others that constitutes the proper context in which man lives; our sense contact with present reality, or in-tuition, gains its central significance by bestowing a mark of its immediate persuasiveness on the reality of others.27

ii) The movements of human existence Human existence in the natural world is dynamic. Human existence is, then, in movement.28 Man is confronted with tasks and possibilities, which are presented to an embodied existence.29 The movement of exist-

27 28

The Natural World and Phenomenology, p. 258. The italics are Patokas.

Patoka understands movement as the realization of human existence through the appropriation of possibilities. Patoka recovers Aristotles notion of movement as the actualization of an essence and modifies it in an existential sense, in such a way that the actualization of a human essence is not that of a preexisting one which discloses itself, but of an essence which is being built in each appropriation of possibilities. Patokas main work on this subject has not yet been translated to any commonly accessible language: Aristotels, jeho pedchdci a ddicov [Aristotle, his predecessors and his successors]. Nakladatelstv eskoslovensk akademie vd, Praha 1964. This book has a French abstract which, to our knowledge, has not been either translated or republished: pp. 389403.
29 For the study of corporality in Patoka, see Leons sur la corporit, in Papiers Phnomnologiques, translated by Erika Abrams. Jerme Millon, Grenoble 1995, pp. 53116; Body, Community, Language, World, translated by Erazim Kohk. Open Court, Chicago 1998.

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ence is lived in the inner experience,30 and is described also as a relationship with the other. This movement can take place in three different forms, which are typical of different existential positions. There are, then, three existential movements: the movements of rootedness, of defence, and the movement of truth. The existential movement is first of all a movement of rootedness, through which an individual is received and accepted into life. Rootedness is the acceptance of one by the others in the community. By virtue of this acceptance, the individual has a place in the group, and therefore a place in the world. Thus, the individuals existence has a primary meaning. Rootedness discloses the world for the first time, in the sense that one is accepted into it: Thus man is from the start of life immersed, rooted primarily in the other.31 The movement of rootedness has a strong connection with the movement of defence. This second movement consists of working to obtain what is necessary for subsistence, and to maintain the order which allows the acceptance of life and the movement of rootedness. The individual, who has been accepted into life, has to join the others in the task of working so that the conditions of the acceptance can be maintained. In this movement the world as exteriority is disclosed:
The other as well as, in the natural, inevitable mutual bonding, the others is what covers us, thanks to whose help the earth can first become the earth for me, the sky the sky the others are our original home. A home, that sinking of roots, is not, however, possible of itself and for itself. A home is a place where the sinking of roots among things takes place, that is, where needs are met, through the mediation of others. What is needed, though, must be procured, secured and that takes place only partially in the home the activity of procuring what is needed, work, entails an outside, the work place, the domain of objectivity. 32

30 31 32

The Natural World and Phenomenology, p. 255. The Natural World and Phenomenology, p. 260. Ibid., p. 260.

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Finally, the movement of truth is the confrontation with finitude and the question of the meaning of such a finite existence. When someone assumes his finitude, he confronts his existence and he is situated explicitly in front of the world as a totality. In this situation, the individual is in a position from which the question for himself and his life can be posed. This assumption of finitude and this enquiry into the meaning of existence has, for Patoka, clear moral connotations. In the movement of truth, the human being accepts his finitude as well as the responsibility for his existence. Each one is then responsible for the choices he makes and for the subsequent shape he gives to his life and being. This moral dimension of the movement of truth is essential to the ethical and political dimensions of Patokas thought, and is especially essential to the understanding of the ethical root and impulse already present in Patokas first philosophy. d) Conclusive remarks of this section Thus, asubjective phenomenology leads to a consideration of man where he is situated in a previously-existing and independent world.33 The human being lives as well in a natural world, structured according to referents. In this natural world, human existence develops in a dynamic way, and this in the three fundamental movements described above. Mortality and finitude are made explicit in the movement of truth and it is here where responsibility for ones life, and the shape one gives to ones being, takes place. This means that responsibility is rooted in the human dynamism of the existential movements. The teleology of truth is then present in Patoka within the frame of philosophy of existence, which starts from the standpoint of finite existence. The finite individual, existing in a pre-given world, is then oriented, by virtue of its third movement, to responsibility. Morality is then incorporated in the dynamism of finite human existence.

33 To be more precise, it is asubjective phenomenology and its phenomenological philosophy, that make us draw these conclusions about human existence and the world.

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2. The ethical root in Patokas first philosophy

We have analysed Patokas critique of Husserlian idealism, and Patokas idea of an asubjective phenomenology, in which the phenomena give account of themselves by themselves, and with this the world is made present, a world in which individual existence is situated and rooted. We have also analysed how Patoka places individual finite existence, already rooted in the world, as living in the natural world of ordinary existence. In this last point we have seen how Patoka introduces the question for truth and meaning in the third existential movement. The question for truth and meaning as a structural element in human finite existence is of great importance with regard to the problem of ethics in existential philosophy. This problem has been posed for instance by Ludwig Landgrebe, in his book Philosophie der Gegenwart. Basically, the problem is as follows: if the horizon of human existence is the confrontation of its possibilities, confronting thus mortality, and only mortality, then it can be asked what meaning can unconditional ethical exigencies have. Once there is no longer an absolute source of unconditional moral values, a strong foundation of morals seems to no longer exist.34 Taking this into account, we can better appreciate the importance of Patokas thought. His work shows a philosophical path which is open to the quest for truth and this from a phenomenological and existential perspective. For Patoka, man is indeed thrown (geworfen) into existence, as Heidegger would say, but, in his being thrown, the human being is placed in such a way that the question for truth and meaning can be posed, and this in an absolute sense. This question is furthermore posed within a shared world, and this question therefore has a political dimension.

34

See the already mentioned sixth chapter of Philosophie der Gegenwart.

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a) The ethical dimension in the third movement: technical civilisation and sacrifice By virtue of the third movement, the human being is thrown into existence among others, consciously confronting his existence, explicitly assuming his possibilities as possibilities. Thus, the existent who is thrown into the world who has been accepted into life and who has to work to defend life is the very same who confronts his life and seeks for truth and meaning.35 The teleology for truth is then present in the dynamism of thrown existence. This reference to truth in existential dynamism can be demanding to the point of requiring sacrifice. The topic of sacrifice is dealt with in Patokas late writings,36 and it clearly indicates that for the finite individual there can be something worth dying for. This is an eminently Socratic attitude, which says that it is better to die rather than to live in indignity. Sacrifice is the only human action capable, in our days, of showing that there is meaning beyond that of the mere survival. Technical civilisation has imposed its own understanding of being to such an extent that it threatens to definitively obscure the revelation of being that is at the origin of any understanding of being. This form of understanding is that of Gestell, in Heideggers terms. In Gestell being is disclosed and comprehended in entities that are simply placed (gestellt), to be used in a complex of technical relations directed by technical aims. The peculiarity of Gestell, as opposed to other understandings of being, is that it is so universally extended that it seeks to fully comprehend and

35 Or, at least, who can seek for truth and meaning. Evasion is always possible. Nevertheless, once the third movement is present, the human being is confronted by totality and the question of meaning. Following Heidegger, Patoka considers that evasion is nothing other than an inauthentic form of facing finitude and problematicity.

These ideas can be found in his work Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, translated by Erazim Kohk, preface by Paul Ricur. Open Court Publishing Company, 1996. Original in Czech, Kacsk eseje o filosofii djin, in Sebran spisy, tome 3, pp. 11144.

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understand being itself. In this way, the original disclosure of being, which is different from entities, and which is the condition for the presentation of them, is completely foreclosed. The ontological difference in Heidegger is, for Patoka, the place where human freedom is located and where responsibility is possible. The ontological difference is the realm where the third movement takes place. In other words, the confrontation of finitude and the totality in its problematicity is for Patoka the discovery of ontological difference, which, in turn, is disclosed as the very problematicity that has woken the third movement and with it freedom and responsibility.37 This very ontological difference is what is threatened by our world, by Gestell. We live today in a world which takes everything as fully understood in terms of technical efficiency and which takes the aim of life-maintenance as the only aim in human life.38 In this situation, sacrifice is the only action that can counter Gestell. Sacrifice, according to Patoka, means giving up ones well-being, or even ones life, in the name of a horizon of meaning which goes far beyond the realm of Gestell. Sacrifice means, for Patoka, following the logic of the technical world, with all its consequences, to the end, showing there that the action of those consequences refers to something other than what is given as meaning by the technical world. By doing this, those who sacrifice themselves, make explicit that there is a given meaning which is beyond being revealed as Gestell. Gestell is not the ultimate

This relationship between ontological difference and the third movement is another example of the complex assimilation of Heidegger by Jan Patoka. These two terms are not simply equivalent. Rather, ontological difference gives Patoka a key to the better understanding of what is at stake in the third movement. In this sense, Gestell serves to explain the specific danger to human freedom which is present in our world. See tyi semine kproblmu Evropy [Four seminars on the problem of Europe], in Sebran Spisy Jana Patoky 3, Pe o dui III. Oikoymenh, Prague 2002, pp. 374429; there is a Spanish translation (Libertad y Sacrificio, translated by Ivn Ortega Rodrguez. Sgueme, Salamanca 2007, pp. 273342) and a French one of the second, third and fourth seminars: Sminaire sur lre technique, in Libert et Sacrifice. crits politiques, translated by Erika Abrams. Jerme Millon, Grenoble 1991, pp. 277324.
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revelation of being, since there are people who can give no value at all to what is shown by Gestell and sacrifice themselves in the name of a revelation of being39 which is not that of technical civilisation. Not every sacrifice seems to go beyond Gestell. On the contrary, some sacrifices seem to confirm the techno-scientific organisation of the world. There are then, according to Patoka, two types of sacrifice: authentic and inauthentic. The difference between them lies precisely in whether those who sacrifice themselves to stay within the realm of Gestell or to transcend it. To stay within Gestell means for Patoka staying in the realm of entity (that is, of Being already revealed in a certain way that of Gestell). To trascend Gestell means going beyond entity and referring to Being as what is beyond entity and at its source. Inauthentic sacrifice is then sacrifice for the entity whereas authentic sacrifice is sacrifice for Being.40 When talking about sacrifice, Patoka does not have in mind those who consciously sacrifice themselves (as in the cases of Sakharov, Oppenheimer and Solzhenitsin). In the Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History he mentions those who are led to sacrifice themselves, taking as his example the soldiers in the First World War. They do not willingly sacrifice themselves, but they also discover a horizon of meaning which is beyond the realm of what was taken as meaningful in time of peace.41 From this situation, Patoka speaks of another sort of human action which is possible in this context. This action is the solidarity of the

39 In this context, sacrificing oneself in the name of a horizon of meaning or a revelation of being that goes beyond Gestell have to be understood as two synonymous expressions. 40 This means that, according to Patoka, we do not have to wait for any Grace of being (Gunst des Seins) (Cf. tyi semine kproblmu Evropy, pp. 392393; Cuatro seminarios sobre el problema de Europa, pp. 299300) that may put an end to the era of Gestell. There is something that we can do to help a new understanding of Being to emerge, and this action is sacrifice. This does not mean that everyone must undergo sacrifice, but that we can follow the sacrifice of those who do.

Vlky 20. stolet a 20. stolet jako vlka, in Kacsk eseje o filosofii djin, in Sebran spisy 3, Pe o dui III, pp. 117131. See the French version Les guerres du XXe sicle et le XX sicle en tant que guerre, in Essais hrtiques sur la philosophie de lhistoire, trans. by Erika Abrams. Verdier, Pocket Edition, Paris 2007, pp. 191

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shaken. The shaking experience lived by those led to sacrifice is capable of creating community. This community would have in common the fact of having been shaken in their certainties concerning meaning as it is ordinarily given, that is, meaning according to the contemporary technical world. The shaken are thus those who make manifest the possibility of distance from the given, of not affirming the exclusivity of lifemaintenance. The solidarity of the shaken is, then, the human bond which remains hopeful of transcending meaning and freedom. The solidarity of the shaken represents, as well, the possibility of a new human community not simply founded on the aims of maintaining life within the frame of technical civilisation. Sacrifice, then, in both forms, represents the possibility of countering the contemporary tendency to the absolutisation of technical views of the world, and the dehumanizing consequences that they carry with them. Sacrifice is a possibility of human existence within the third movement, since sacrifice involves an explicit view of totality, as well as the question for meaning and the mystery of the donation as different from what is given. All this means, that thrown existence is not, for Patoka, an obstacle to the individual in referring to absolute values and ideals so absolute that they are worth dying for. This is in fact an attitude carried out by Patoka, which in the end led him to death. This strong position in favour of absolute referents, despite having as its philosophical foundation the individual in his finitude, are present in some words of Patoka expressed shortly before his death:
Let us not mince words: submissiveness has never led to relaxation, only to greater severity. The greater the fear and severity, the more have the mighty dared, the more they dare and the more they will dare. Nothing can make them relax their grip except a corrosion of their confidence a realization that their acts and injustice and discrimination do not pass unnoticed () we need to observe and note our inner development as well. Note that our people have once more become aware that there are things for which it is worthwhile to suffer, that the things that

216. There is an English version: Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, translated by Erazim Kohk. Open Court Publishing, Chicago 1996, pp. 119138.

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The Ethical Impulse in Patokas Phenomenology for which we may have to suffer are those which make life worthwhile, and that without them all our arts, literature, and culture become mere trades leading only from the desk to the pay office and back.42

Summing up, Patoka thinks that a moral perspective is possible within the horizon of finite and thrown existence. This moral perspective is referred to absolute values, which can be worth more than ones own life. It is important to notice that Patoka stays within the limits of a phenomenological analysis. Patokas first philosophy is also entirely within the limits of ontology, where being is the last thing that can be said of things, the last horizon to which everything is referred. b) Patoka and Lvinas: Ethics and the limits of phenomenology Patokas thought is certainly not the only attempt to consider ethics and sociality from the standpoint of phenomenology, and it is therefore interesting to compare Patokas attempt with others. Of particular interest is, as we have indicated, the comparison with the thought of Emmanuel Lvinas. Both authors represent two different ways of approaching ethics from a phenomenological perspective. The key point in which the two authors differ is whether it is necessary to surpass the frames of phenomenology and ontology in order that ethics can be properly thought. This problem points to a central question, the relationship between phenomenology and practical philosophy. More generally, this question points to the further question of whether a common foundation for public ethics on philosophical grounds is possible and whether phenomenology is suitable for this task. Lvinas affirms that ethics can only be approached if we move beyond the limits of ontology, that is to say, the way of thinking whose ultimate horizon is that of being. Phenomenology, to Lvinas, allows one to discover the terrain from which to carry out a non-ontological thinking, which discloses a realm prior to the disclosure of being, and thus prior to ontology, where ethics is possible. This new realm, charac-

J. Patoka, What we can and what we cannot expect from Charta 77, in Erazim Kohk, op. cit., pp. 343347. The extract is taken from pp. 343 and 346. My italics.

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terised by the epiphany of the other, is a pluralistic one, which avoids the assumption of everything in a single all-encompassing horizon. This metaphysical pluralism is to Lvinas indispensable for ethics to be coherently thought and carried out. Patoka, to the contrary, does not leave the limits of ontology, 43 and within this limit he finds a point from which, as we have seen, the question for truth and meaning is possible. Patokas phenomenology puts forward, in addition, a metaphysical monism, since the world and human existence can be thought of as within the sphere of appearing. It is within the sphere of appearing where human existence places itself face to face with problematicity and where responsibility is rendered possible. Let us have a closer look. Lvinas thinks that ethics appears with the breaking of totality44 (lclat de la totalit) that occurs with the irruption of the visage of the other (le visage de lautre). Western philosophy has been dominated by the thinking of totality, for which everything is ultimately set in a systematic whole, ruled by theoretically describable exact laws, which establish the pattern of every single element in the totality. The radical knowledge which philosophy seeks is, accordingly, the comprehension of totality and its conforming laws.
Even if Patoka says that appearing as such is not a real entity, he nevertheless states that this dimension is worldly and that it corresponds to a dimension of being (even if not that of appearing things). The ontological characterization of Patokas phenomenology is clearer when he takes appearing as understanding of being. Anyway, in the terms of Lvinas, Patoka stays clearly within the realm of ontology since he affirms an ultimate all-encompassing horizon (however open it may be). In this article we have based our reference to Lvinas on his book Totality and Infinity, translated by Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne University Press, 1999 (in French, Totalit et Infini. Essai sur lexteriorit. Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag 1971, reprinted in Le Livre de Poche, 2003), in a closer study, we should take into account the other works by Lvinas, especially the ones which came after Totality and Infinity, like Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, translated by Alphonso Linguis, Duquesne University Press, 1999 (in French, Autrement qutre ou au del de lessence. Le Livre de Poche, Paris 2004), in which the ethical reference to the other became even more radical. As far as the aims of this article are concerned, namely, the comparison of two possibilities of thinking ethics from the perspective of the philosophy of existence, it is enough to refer only to Totality and Infinity, the best known work by Lvinas. I use the French text.
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The idea of totality corresponds to a way of thinking in which what is thought and known is assimilated to consciousness. Knowledge would seek to dominate what is to be known. Thus, otherness is neutralized, since once something is known and com-prehended it is assimilated to consciousness. The thinking of totality leads to an affirmation of the futility of morals. If all that is consists of a whole ruled by objective laws, then good and evil are nothing but structural elements of the system. Moreover (as Lvinas observes at the beginning of Totality and Infinity) from the point of view of totality, war is no disgrace, but an exemplary revelation of the true nature of totality.45 In the totality, all its elements constitute a harmonic whole, and their interactions are forces whose laws can be described by us. These forces and their interaction find their clearest expression in war. War is, then, no enigma. On the contrary, it shows the true nature of totality, where evil is a subjective experience of objective events within the totality. Moral protest, the denunciation of injustice are thus without rational foundation. They are, at most, a particular and senseless rebellion of the individual against what is unacceptable to his limited view. The futility of this rebellion is however fully revealed under the light of the knowledge of what things really are. It is therefore of vital importance, affirms Lvinas, to know whether we can speak of another way of thinking, more radical than that of totality and prior to it, where a moral behaviour can have a place. Therefore, ethics, as the exigency of the universal validity of moral duty is only rationally possible if it becomes clear that rationality is not only and ultimately the thinking of totality. To Lvinas, the interpersonal relationship reveals itself in such a way that it becomes clear that the adequate way of thinking this relationship can be no longer described in terms of totality. The interpersonal relationship is constituted by the appeal of the visage of the other, and this relationship is discourse in an eminent sense, where the other appeals to the self in his helplessness, and where the self has, in the very act of hearing the appeal, to recognise the appeal and somehow apologise for his independence and joy. The self, independent, separated and atheist, is appealed to by the

45

See Prface, in Totalit et Infini, pp. 516.

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other so that he will respect him. This elemental and eminent relationship of appeal and apology is, to Lvinas, the phenomenological foundation for every sort of communication and language; and thus sociality is revealed as essentially founded on an unconditional appeal from a helpless other who questions the self in his independence and makes the self step back in his affirmation before the call of the other. This is the first commandment heard by the self, and it is always obeyed: the other says to the self Thou shall not kill, and the self ceases, for a moment, to impose its existence46 (since the act of being is always a sort of imposition of ones existence, of actualization of ones essence). This first commandment establishes the basic interpersonal relationship and sets the basis for sociality, communication and language; it may be followed by violence, but disrespect for the other will always be preceded by this very first act of stepping back, which is the actual recognition of the other as the other.47 This interpersonal relationship is the revelation of the fundamental distance between the same and the other (Le mme et lautre),48 a distance that cannot be prevented. The relationship between the same and the other involves an infinite distance that grows deeper and deeper as the relationship goes on. This relationship is described by Lvinas mainly because to him it is far more than a particular case of a relationship within the world. This relationship discloses reality in such a way that it can no longer be encompassed in a totality. Thus, a new form of rationality is revealed, a way of thinking that does not neutralize otherness, but respects it. Inter-

46 This is true even if the commandment is immediately violated, there is necessarily a prior act of allegiance. To violate the duty of respecting the other, it is necessary to have recognised the other as such so that one may immediately deny this status. This primordial act of recognition is already an act of allegiance to the commandment imposed on me by the other.

See Sparation et discours [Separation and Discourse], in Totalit et Infini, pp. 4580, especially Discours et thique [Discourse and Ethics], pp. 6975.
48 This is the title of the first section, Le Mme et lAutre, pp. 21108. This first section contains the topics which will be further developed in the other chapters of the book.

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personal relationship, characterized by an infinite distance, reveals itself as the concrete experience of the idea of infinity as described by Descartes, where what is thought is greater than the thinker.49 This experience that reveals the idea of Infinity, and Infinity itself, is to Lvinas absolutely radical, and therefore the absolutely first manifestation of being is absolute heterogeneity, the revelation from above (the epiphany) of the other as absolute other. The fundamental disclosure of being is thus not the homogenizing and neutralizing univocal horizon of being (from which all the entities would emerge), but the multiplicity of entities relating the ones to the others without being assumed in a common concept. Reality, then, is revealed, by virtue of the fundamental idea of infinity revealed through interpersonal relationship, as unmistakably plural. The being is not prior to the entities, but the entities, as absolute poles of personal relationships, are absolutely prior in the disclosure of being (which consequently is, properly speaking, no being at all). This very first disclosure of reality as plural reveals, according to Lvinas, that ethics is the first philosophy, since the fundamental relationships between the absolutely singular entities is an ethical rapport, where each one is called upon to respect the other and recognize the other as an other. To Lvinas, ethics is not only a thinkable possibility; it is actually the very fundamental philosophy. However, once we have reached the point where infinity is revealed, we leave phenomenology and the realm of ontology. We no longer analyse phenomena in their givenness since the other is revealed in such a way that it escapes every attempt to catch it and analyse it. Likewise, the horizon of being cannot comprehend anymore what is revealed by the epiphany of the other (and permanently sought for in its being always elusive to our control). Consequently, Lvinas starts with the phenomenological method. Phenomenology reveals a fundamental interpersonal dynamism that surpasses the limits of the theoretical and practical attitude that deals with objects, typical of the thinking in terms of totality. Thus, he goes beyond what can be apprehended by the intentional relationship of consciousness towards

49

See Mtaphysique et transcendence, in Totalit et Infini, pp. 2139.

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its com-prehended objects, and thus leaving the realm of phenomenology. With this, we also leave behind a realm where entities could always be understood as referred to the concept and horizon of being. In other words, it is possible to think ethically from the standpoint of phenomenology, in the sense that it leads to the properly ethical and unconditional way of thinking. However, at this point the phenomenological method (as the study of consciousness in its being referred to comprehended objects as they appear) is no longer of applicability. To Lvinas, then, the philosophy of existence can reach to its limits, where ethical thinking has its terrain, a terrain that is primordial to totality. Patoka, on the contrary, stays clearly in a position which Lvinas would describe as within the limits of totality and ontology. Patoka considers that ethics does appear within the realm of ontology, and never indicates that it is necessary to leave this realm. In the movement of truth, the individual faces his finitude and his possibilities. The individual is responsible for his choices: when a possibility is chosen over others, man decides to shape his existence in one way or another. Therefore, man is responsible for shaping himself in a better or worse way. This applies also to human collectives as such, where one of different ways of existing socially is decided.50 Consequently, to Patoka, it is possible to collectively choose a better or worse way of being. Phenomenology then leads to ethics at an individual and a social level, and this without leaving the limits of ontology. Thus, it can be said that Patokas thesis is opposed to Lvinas in that Patoka proposes an ethics within ontology and phenomenology, that is, Lvinas would say, in terms of totality. The confrontation of Patokas and Lvinas positions concerning the place of ethics leads us to a fundamental philosophical debate. This debate concerns the possibility of thinking ethics and its relationship with ontology or theoretical metaphysics. Two problems should be addressed.
50 This interesting notion of collective decisions can be found, in my view, in Patokas essay What are the Czechs? (Was sind die Tschechen?, in Ausgewahlte Schriften, tome III, Schriften zur Tschechischen Kultur und Geschichte. Klett-Cotta, Vienna; French translation, Quest-ce que les tchques?, in Lide de lEurope en Bohme, trans. by Erika Abrams. Jerme Millon, Grenoble 1991, pp. 13113).

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The first one concerns the primacy of ethics or ontology. The second one deals with the necessity of thinking either in terms of metaphysical pluralism, or not in those terms, if we are to coherently think ethics. Concerning the first problem, Lvinas states the necessity of establishing ethics as first philosophy, since otherwise otherness would not be respected. Patoka, for his part, seems to accept the primacy of ontology and, at the same time, he states the possibility of ethics within ontology. Concerning the second point, Lvinas position affirms the necessity of metaphysical pluralism if otherness is not to be nullified in a single ultimately all-encompassing horizon. Patoka, on the contrary, establishes the world in appearing as constituted by such a horizon and it is within this world that human existence develops the existential movement in its three forms. If we were to continue the debate, we might ask whether Patokas ethics is actually thinkable within the strict limits of phenomenology and ontology, or whether a closer consideration of his own ideas would not lead one to conclude that, eventually, Patoka would have to take the path of Lvinas. Patoka characterises the third existential movement in such a way that there is a reference to an absolute horizon. This absolute horizon is always sought, but it can be so morally binding as to make one consider that it can be worth dying for it. Thus, from a Lvinasian perspective, it could be said that in Patokas philosophy there is the problem of ascertaining how the absolute can be posed from the situation of a finite existence. This finite existence is rooted in a world that is revealed in an always partial and limited way. We could certainly speak of the better or worse adequacy of a conformation of the existent to what is, but it could be replied that at most there would be a better adaptation rather than goodness as such. It is clear, notwithstanding, that the movement of truth, as described by Patoka, is far from being simple adaptability. As we have seen, Patoka states the Socratic thesis that it is better to die than live without dignity. Thus, it could be asked whether Patokas very notion of freedom and responsibility would not require another metaphysical frame of reference, a pluralistic one which would go beyond ontology and would respect otherness and, this way, open a real possibility for Patokas third movement to exist.

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This point can be put the other way round, as a Patokian questioning of Lvinas. Then, it could be asked whether freedom and absolute responsibility do necessarily require a pluralistic metaphysics and a surpassing of ontology. Maybe Lvinas criticism only applies to a certain form of ontology and metaphysical monism. Perhaps we can speak of ontology and metaphysical monism and respect for otherness. Perhaps Patokas philosophy gives us a clue to such a metaphysical monism that allows ethics to exist. To him, human existence is projected on a world that appears and discloses itself in an indefinite ever-opening horizon. This indefinite horizon is a single and all-encompassing one, it is true, but it is not clear that it forecloses the absolute. From a Lvinasian position, it could be replied that there is an ultimate all-encompassing horizon (however open and indefinite it may be) and that, thus, all otherness is finally assumed and nullified in it. But this is precisely the point that needs to be discussed. In fact, a Patokian point of view would reply to this Lvinasian objection that the idea that every monism nullifies otherness, disrespects the other and forecloses ethics, is a presupposition which treats all monistic philosophies in the same light.51 Instead of discarding all monistic philosophies, we should pay close attention to attempts like Patokas and his proposal of both an all-encompassing horizon and radical responsibility. Thus, a philosophical debate would be stirred, a debate which we cannot continue in this paper and whose consequences would be, in my view, unpredictable. c) Patoka, philosophy of existence, and the foundation of public ethics The philosophical debate that we have outlined above goes far beyond the limits of academic debate and touches the most urgent questions concerning the possibility of a foundation of public ethics on a strong
51 We deal with monistic metaphysics and ontology as if we dealt with the same question. Both topics have much in common and to a certain extent we can speak of both at the same time, as we do here. Nevertheless, a closer consideration would have to make distinctions. Not every ontology should have to be monistic (we could speak of being as having different meanings) and not every monism should have to be ontological (the horizon of being could be included in a superior horizon).

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philosophical basis. We need to face the problem of how it is possible to make proposals in the realm of ethics and politics from the standpoint of the philosophy of existence. From here, we arrive at the question of the possibilities of phenomenology and philosophy of existence of proposing universally-binding values in a pluralistic society. Concerning this topic, it is interesting to compare the attempts carried out from the perspective of philosophy of existence, with those from other philosophical approaches, like those of Apel or Habermas.52 These authors try to establish values that can be accepted by all in reflecting upon the conditions for communication within a dialogue. Briefly explained, the basic point of these philosophies is that men in society have to communicate and speak in order to carry out life. In other words, life and survival assumes dialogue and discussion. If discussion and communication are possible, then there must be some previous conditions that need to be met. These conditions are ones that render communication possible, and communication is what renders life in society, and hence life at all, possible. These conditions, as they are prior to every communication, can be characterised as transcendental conditions. Naturally, communication is never in fact completely successful, and that is why these conditions can be considered as ideals. Consequently, these conditions indicate ideals that need to be accepted in order that communication and life can be possible. A pluralistic society can hold different ideals and notions about how to lead ones life and about how to organise civil coexistence, but, as a society, it needs communication. Thus, all its members need to accept as binding the ideals that indicate the conditions

The main works by these two authors are K. O. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie, Suhrkamp, 2002; and J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, two tomes, Suhrkamp, 1997 (English translation, The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Vol 1, Polity Press, 1986; The Theory of Communicative Action: Critique of Functionalist Reason, Vol. 2, Polity Press, 1986). A closer analysis should take into account other works exploring the differences between these two authors, with an emphasis on Habermas. In this article, however, we can focus on these main works so as to show the basic opposition which, in our view, exists between the existential and communicative approaches to ethics in the public realm.

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for good communication and dialogue; and as they are not completely met, everyone in a pluralist society, however different their ideas may be, must seek to fulfil this ideals for the sake of everyone.53 Existential philosophy, as we have seen in Patoka and Lvinas, has also tried to find a foundation for ethics, overcoming a certain previous shortcoming. Whatever the differences we can find between the phenomenological proposals, all of them try to find a basic ground, an incontrovertible starting point from which to found ethics.54 This common ground can be the epiphany of the other (and the irruption of the third which is the origin of society) in Lvinas or the third movement of existence in Patoka. In any case, a debate could and should be stirred between the phenomenological attempts and other ones, as well as a debate within phenomenological proposals concerning the foundation of public ethics. In this debate, supporters of Apel or Habermas could argue that a phenomenological approach requires accepting metaphysical theses which are not at all clear, whereas their proposal only requires a consensus on some basic rules to continue with the public discussion. From this standpoint, phenomenological proposals would involve us in abstruse academic debates which are of no interest as far as public ethics is concerned. From a phenomenological standpoint, on the contrary, these rules would not be
This is a rough description of the communicative approach. A more detailed description should have insisted upon the differences between its two main authors, Apel and Habermas. Basically, Apel is more universal than Habermas, since the former affirms that the conditions for communication can be established as transcendental pragmatics from dialogue considered in itself. Habermas, on the other hand, thinks that the conditions for dialogue are to be found in the worldview of each culture. The explanation of this difference would go beyond the limits of this article. We have tried to give a brief description so as to present the problem of ethics from the standpoint of philosophy of existence as opposed to other approaches such as, in this case, communicative ethics.
54 We are not saying here that Patoka or Lvinas actually proposed a foundation of public ethics. We focus on the possibilities opened by their theses. Although they did not personally offer such proposals (to my knowledge), others have appealed to their positions for such a foundation of public ethics. This is the case of the Czech dissident movement in relation to Jan Patoka, especially as evinced by Vclav Havel. 53

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binding enough and they would not have the necessary strength so as everyone might abide by them. According to this perspective, we need to find some ground that can be accepted by anyone whatever their interests or cultural backgrounds. Discussions concerning metaphysical monism or pluralism, for example, would not be obscure discussions, but debates concerning the very position of human beings in the world and its consequences for something like public ethics to be coherently established. A debate within phenomenological approaches should be stirred as well. In this debate, the political realm should enter more clearly into the discussion and should become an element in evaluating the different phenomenological proposals. An interaction between the different theories for the sake of their application in the field of politics could be required. For example, we might think that Hannah Arendts political community could be a continuation of the community created by Patokas solidarity of the shaken, a positive continuation of Patokas idea in the public sphere beyond the resistance to a certain situation. These discussions within the phenomenological tradition would help clarify its positions and make them more defendable when debating with other proposals.

4. Final remarks
The aim of this article has been to explain how ethical and political dimensions are present in Patoka from the very foundations of his thought. We have also tried to show that this ethical and political root is of great relevance in current philosophical and political debates. Patokas work has, first of all, great importance in the field of strictly phenomenological discussions, especially as far as human existence and its being in the world are concerned. Patokas phenomenological thinking clearly affirms a primacy of the worldly, in so far that it is the world that sustains subjectivity as its a priori; a world that is also independent of the subject. These ideas do certainly have difficulties. These difficulties point to the complexity and the very possibility of an account of the appearing of the world without a foundation in transcendental subjectivity.

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Ivn Ortega Rodrguez

Patokas thought is also important in phenomenology as far as the question for the place of ethics is concerned. Patoka, as we have seen, proposes an ethical horizon from the perspective of finite existence in the world, and within the limits of ontology. It is necessary to carefully study Patokas thought, in order to discern the possibilities of his proposal. This study should be made in comparison with other possibilities, especially with the one represented by Emmanuel Lvinas. In this debate we should focus on the possible objections posed to Patoka from other authors (like Lvinas) and on the objections that from Patokas perspective can be posed to other proposals. This debate would lead us to the most fundamental discussions in first philosophy, like that of monistic versus pluralistic metaphysics. Patokas work is of great relevance in the debate on the foundation of public ethics as well. It is then necessary, as we have said, to analyse the possibility and feasibility of his ideas. Likewise, a comparative analysis ought to be carried out so as to study the possibilities of philosophy of existence to propose such shared ethical ideals, as opposed to the possibilities of other philosophical approaches. In any case, Patokas work gives us a perfect example of how theoretical philosophy can be the basis for a discussion in such practical fields as that of ethics and politics. Last but not least, Patokas philosophy, in its stimulating debates at such fundamental levels and with such practical consequences, is a powerful vindication of first philosophy and of its importance for practical issues like those of ethics and politics. Just by setting in motion such philosophical questions at such profound levels and in connection with the realm of human action, Patokas thought claims for first philosophy (and philosophy as such) its proper place at a time when it is often too easily discarded.

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