Abstract
How can Jan Patočka’s phenomenology of afterlife enable us to understand the historiographical process in general and the role of testimony in the historiographical process, in particular? Patočka presents a phenomenological analysis of co-existence and afterlife where others continue to be with us, as a part of our lifeworld and our constitution of ourselves, even after they are gone. We see ourselves through others and we continue to experience our lifeworld with them, a relation that is transformed but not disrupted after their death. In historiographical discussions, historical knowledge is often defined in opposition to memories, on account of its distance to our immediate, personal relation to our past. Such discussions were famously undertaken by thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur and Pierre Nora. The aim of this paper is to place the phenomenological analysis of death and of loss within discussions surrounding the relation between memory and historical knowledge. In particular, it examines how we constitute and re-constitute collective memory and historical knowledge through testimonies and archives. It argues that we can understand testimonies and archives as different modes of being with the dead, modes that continue to constitute both our individual field of experience, and our collective historical situation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The relation between Ricoeur and Patočka has been discussed in recent years, in particular a special number of META from 2017 was dedicated to the relation between the two philosophers. The editors outline both their affinities in terms of influences, the similarities between their thoughts and the influence they had on one another (see Hagedorn and Marinescu 2017, 381). Even though Patočka has not written about Ricoeur’s philosophy, he had read his work, and the influence can be seen in some of Patočka’s objections to Husserl and Heidegger as well as in Patočka’s correspondences (Hagedorn and Marinescu 2017, 382). Furthermore, their affinities regarding their theories of afterlife are discussed by Christian Sternad. He stresses how a phenomenology of death and the afterlife, for both Patočka and Ricoeur must begin with an account of intersubjectivity (Sternad 2017, 537).
- 2.
Merleau-Ponty cites Paul Valéry’s Tel Quel I, (see Valéry 1982, 490). The translation has been modified, the original reads as follows: “Dès que les regards se prennent, l’on n’est plus tout à fait deux et il y a de la difficulté à demeurer seul. […] Tu prends mon image, mon apparence, je prends la tienne. Tu n’es pas moi, puisque tu me vois et que je ne me vois pas. Ce qui me manque, c’est ce moi que tu vois. Et à toi, ce qui manque, c’est toi que je vois.” (Merleau-Ponty 1960, 294).
- 3.
The numbers within slashes refer to the page numbers of the printed Czech text, included within slashes in the above English translation.
References
Ahlskog, Jonas. 2016. R. G. Collingwood and the concept of testimony: A story about autonomy and reliance. Clio: Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History 45 (2): 181–204.
———. 2017. The evidential paradigm in modern history. Storia della Storiografia 71 (1): 111–128.
Barbaras, Renaud. 2021. Introduction to a phenomenology of life. Trans. Leonard Lawlor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bloch, Marc. 1952. Apologie pour l’histoire ou métier d’historien. Paris: Armand Colin.
Dickens, Charles. 1999. A tale of two cities. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth.
Eliot, George. 2005. Adam Bede. In Four novels of George Eliot. Ware: Wordsworth.
Evink, Eddo. 2013. Surrender and subjectivity: Merleau-Ponty and Patočka on intersubjectivity. Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy 5 (1): 13–28.
Hagedorn, Ludger, and Paul Marinescu. 2017. Exploring the undisclosed meanings of time, history, and existence: Ricoeur and Patočka as philosophical interlocutors: Introduction by the editors. Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy 9 (2): 379–383.
Husserl, Edmund. 1978. The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology: An introduction to phenomenological philosophy. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Mensch, James. 2007. The a priori of the visible: Patočka and Merleau-Ponty. Studia Phaenomenologica 7: 259–283.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1960. Signes. Paris: Gallimard.
———. 1964. Signs. Trans. Richard C. McCleary. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1968. The visible and the invisible. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
———. 2009 [1964]. Le Visible et l’invisible. Paris: Gallimard.
———. 2013. Recherches sur l’usage littéraire du langage. Genève: MētisPresses.
Nora, Pierre. 1989. Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Mémoire. Representations 26 (Special Issue, Memory and Counter-Memory): 7–24.
Patočka, Jan. 1996. Heretical essays in the philosophy of history. Trans. Erazim Kohák. Ed. James Dodd. Chicago: Open Court.
———. 1998. Body, community, language, world. Trans. Erazim Kohák. Ed. James Dodd. Chicago: Open Court.
Proust, Marcel. 2021. In search of lost time: Volume 4, Sodom and Gomorrah. Trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Ed. William C. Carter. Yale: Yale University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1996. Preface to the French edition of Jan Patočka’s Heretical essays. In Heretical essays in the philosophy of history. Trans. Erazim Kohák, ed. James Dodd, vii–xvi. Chicago: Open Court.
———. 1998. La marque du passé. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 103: 7–31.
———. 2004. Memory, history, forgetting. Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ruin, Hans. 2014. Life after death. https://www.iwm.at/transit-online/life-after-death.
San, Emre. 2012. La Transcendance comme problème phénoménologique: Lecture de Merleau-Ponty et Patočka. Paris: Mimesis.
Sternad, Christian. 2017. The holding back of decline: Scheler, Patočka, and Ricoeur on death and afterlife. Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy 9 (2): 536–559.
Valéry, Paul. 1982. Œuvres intimes. Vol. 2. Paris: Gallimard.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Andén, L. (2024). Between Memory and History: Retracing Historical Knowledge Through a Phenomenology of Afterlife. In: Strandberg, G., Strandberg, H. (eds) Jan Patočka and the Phenomenology of Life After Death. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 128. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49548-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49548-9_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-49547-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-49548-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)