auto-immunity or transcendenceSuch descriptions are made very much in the Husserlian tradition of
problems of constitution and intersubjectivity, being at the same time
deeply indebted to his analyses but also trying to overcome their
criticized self-centeredness of subjectivism. In this sense, the “self-
transcendence” can be understood against a “pure” phenomenological
background. But there is something else: a certain emphasis on
existential “truth,” a certain holistic vocabulary (“life universal, giving
birth to all in all”; “infinity”) that cannot be ignored and is generally
quite characteristic of Patočka. One could, for example, refer to his
studies on literature where he describes exactly such phenomena as the
reciprocal gift of constitution and creation outlined above. It is the
process of self-affirmation that is, ultimately, also a self-overcoming,
that can be found in literature, in Dostoevsky’s novels, for example.
Here the breakthrough to a new life is mainly incited by the “other,”
as in the case of the encounter of the ridiculous man with a little girl.^15
But this is not only the case in Patočka’s view of literature — it seems
that his view of history and politics (one of the main fields of his
interests and philosophical writings) is also stamped by a similar
approach. Once again we see the structure of a double movement that
initially and negatively breaks with routine and established values,
secondly “opens up” to or “transcends,” becoming something new
and positive. In his late writings like the Heretical Essays this is analyzed
as the “shaking” that becomes especially manifest in historical crises,
wars, and generally in the conflicting positions and perspectives that
are an essential part of the political world. It is the loss of all meaningful
life-structures. But as the often quoted “solidarity of the shaken”
indicates, this loss is not the last word. The solidarity of the shaken is
the manifestation of an “authentic transindividuality” (131) that does
not formulate programs but is an answer, a positive reply to the abyss
of problematicity that was opened up by the shaking.
So what about religion? Obviously, religious experiences are the
privileged field of the phenomena described. It is here that the shaking
- In his last essay, written just before his death, Patočka mainly refers to Brothers
Karamazov and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, cf. “Die Sinnfrage in der Epoche
des Nihilismus,” Tschechische Philosophen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Ludger Hagedorn,
Stuttgart: dva, 2002.