Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Conference | Paper

The Place of Human in the World – with Patočka and Plessner

Jaroslava Vydrová

Wednesday 4 September 2024

16:20 - 17:00

TU-Main Venue

The aim of the contribution is to trace the convergence of the philosophical works of Jan Patočka and Helmuth Plessner. Both belong to the generation of Husserl’s students, and although there are no explicit textual overlaps between their two philosophical projects, certain point of meetings can be found on the topic of home, space and the world. I will draw on Plessner’s eccentric positionality that leads to the uncovering of significant phenomena which express complicated situation of a person oscillating between taking root and aiming for home on the one hand, and the impossibility of finding one’s definitive place on the other (as it is articulated in the principle of utopian standpoint). This anthropological project can be seen in phenomenological intersection with conception of Jan Patočka and his text on home, space and world from 60th as well as on sculptural artworks from 1969. In the first consideration Patočka points out that being in space is not just about understanding relations as they are already laid out and arranged, but precisely about the “how” they are arranging and establishing (“getting/moving into order”, “pořádání”). Constitution of home is thus seen in relation to the order of the universe. In the second consideration he points out that the sculpture as a haptic echo of the world gives an experience of the world in its basis. In the contribution we will demonstrate, how for both thinkers, home emerges as a place that is constituted by being addressed by the other, non-place and by developing the verticality of experience, as in religion or art. Against the background of this examination can be developed genetic and generative insights into the place of human in the world.