EUROPE, THE VERY IDEAEXPLORING EUROPE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL

CONCEPT AND PROJECT

9 & 10 May 2014Watershed, 1 Canon's Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX

Programme

9 May

9:00 – 9:45: Coffee and Registration

9:45 – 10:00: Opening remarks

10:00 - 10:45 Nicolas de Warren, “Patočka’s Europe or the Heroic Refusal of Immortality”

10:45 - 12:15 Husserl and EuropeKaspar Bulling, “Finding the Universal in the Particular - Leo Strauss’s Conception of “the West” as a Response to Husserl’s Notion of a “European Humanity”

In the early 20th century, in the midst of a strong tendency to historicize and hence de-universalize any and all cultural formations including the European Enlightenment or “occidental rationality”, there was also a strong counter-tendency, which tried to account for the perceived universal validity of modern European norms and institutions on the basis of the same historical consciousness that seemed to put into question that perceived universal validity. Thinkers such as Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch and Oswald Spengler tried to accomplish precisely this feat of preserving a sense of Western universalism – be it of legal and economic institutions (Weber), a secularized form of Christianity (Troeltsch) or the notion of a culture that is open to the plurality of cultures (Spengler) – even on the basis of historicist epistemological foundations. None of these thinkers, however, preserved – or even sought to preserve – the guiding and orienting role that had been assigned to philosophy and science in the modern West. Perhaps the most passionate attempt to rectify this was put forth in the late work of Edmund Husserl, the Crisis of the European Sciences. In that work, Husserl sets out to answer the question “whether the telos which was inborn in European humanity at the birth of Greek philosophy – that of humanity which seeks to exist, and is only possible, through philosophic reason, […] – whether this telos, […] is merely a factual, historical delusion, the accidental acquisition of merely one among many other kinds of humanity and historicities, or whether Greek humanity was not rather the first breakthrough to what is essential to humanity as such, its entelechy.” (Crisis, p.15) Or in other words, if the particular historical formation he terms “Europe” must be seen as the bearer of a universal mission. Husserl, of course, answers this rhetorical question in favor of a European universalism that finally comes into its own in his own transcendental phenomenology as the only answer to the crisis of the European spirit he diagnosed, and which he saw epitomized in the “crisis of the European Sciences”. Husserl’s bold statement has found a wide echo on the European continent as well as, somewhat belatedly, beyond. In my paper I will sketch one particular response to Husserl’s conception of a “European humanity” that is unambiguously rooted in, and is teleologically endowed with the heritage of, Greek philosophy and its claim to universality, namely the response given by Leo Strauss. Strauss, who briefly studied under Husserl in the 1920’s regarded his erstwhile teacher as, together with his student Heidegger, the most significant

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philosophical voice of the 20th century. At the same time, however, Strauss was deeply critical of Husserl’s single-minded focus on theory as both the root and the single telos of a European humanity that could claim to be the bearer of a universal project. Strauss, in contrast develops a concept of “the West” as growing out of two roots, so to speak, which he saw symbolized by the cities of Athens and Jerusalem. For Strauss, the conflict and tension between philosophy (Athens) and revealed religion (Jerusalem), both of which lay claim to universal truth and validity is what is characteristic of “the West.” Strauss replaces Husserl’s “mono-radical” conception of Europe with a “bi-radical” concept, which acknowledges two possible sources of universal validity: human autonomous rational insight, and the revelation of an omnipotent, providential deity, and makes the opposition and struggle between these sources the defining characteristic of “the West” and its claim to universal significance.My presentation will briefly sketch Husserl’s notion of a “European humanity” in order to use it as the foil against which Strauss’s concept of “the West” emerges as a critical response. I will conclude with some reflections on the question of the “Eurocentrism” that might be ascribed to both Husserl and Strauss, or to the question to what extent and under what conditions universal validity and significance can be assigned to phenomena or characteristics peculiar to a particular cultural formation, such as “Europe.”

Peter Andras Varga, “Husserl’s Europe. A Philosophical Idea Intertwined with a Historical Life”

Husserl’s life, once termed an “unauffälliges Gelehrtenleben” (Klaus Held), seemingly stands in a striking contrast to the socio-political engagements of many of his friends and students, including not only Patočka, Masaryk, and, in a different direction, Heidegger, but also less-known persons like Leonard Nelson. Does this deficiency constitute the reverse side of a philosophy entrapped in rigid transcendentalism and a teleological notion of history? In my presentation I try to turn this question around and show that, if we combine the sporadic biographical sources with the results of recent research on intellectual history and the public role of philosophy, Husserl’s life proves to be embedded in a surprisingly rich way in an array of various historical answers to the question as to what Europe is and how she should look like. This, in turn, could cast more light on the strengths of philosophical notion of Europe.Husserl was born in a Moravian Jewish family, but his father was described as an “old Austrian” and during the last decades of the 19th century his family gradually moved to Vienna. Most of his family members stayed there until their deaths, including his youngest brother, Emil, who was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942. Given the frequent analogy between the erstwhile Vielvölkerreich and the current European unification project, the significance of this background should not be underestimated.Edmund Husserl, however, has chosen another path by studying first in Leipzig, than in Berlin, the vibrant capital of the youthful German Empire. It is there where he must have experienced the two assassination attempts at the Emperor and the subsequent uproar, which were recently singled out by Ulrich Sieg as the cause of the conservative shift in German philosophical landscape. When Husserl had been converted to philosophy by Franz Brentano in Vienna six years later, he already got shocked by the reluctance of his cherished master against the Bismarckian unification of Germany (though this stance did not prevent Brentano from rejecting human rights arguments or the sovereignty of the people).Husserl and the nascent Phenomenological Movement, whose manifest was published during the “summer of the century,” belonged to the pre-war cultural surge in an interconnected

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Europe that bear striking similarities to today’s Europe. Yet Husserl, like many of his compatriots, rejoiced over the outbreak of the war that took him one of his sons and a major part of his assets, including a house sold an invested into war credits.As it has been recently pointed out (Herfried Münkler, Ernst Pieper), the hawkish wartime public involvement of German Geisteswissenschaftler, e.g. in favour of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 that proved to be a catastrophic strategic miscalculation, has greatly contributed to the demise of the leading role of Geisteswissenschaften in Germany, as it highlighted the hard limits of their competence. Interestingly, it was the same period when Husserl has intensified the claim that his phenomenological philosophy is a universal foundation of sciences, the first clear-cut manifest of which he presented precisely in London in 1922, where his invitation was a gesture towards repairing scientific ties damaged by the war.Does then the emergence of the voices of crisis one decade later mirror Husserl’s growing concerns over the feasibility of such enterprise, or his notion of Europe and the philosopher’s task as functionaries of the mankind amount to nothing but his bitter insistence to an untenable philosophical project in the face of the grim prospects of Europe in the 1930s? I do not think so, mainly because the cosmic time-scale of Husserl’s Crisis, a dismantling analysis of the achievements of generative intentionality, does not correspond to Europe’s historical crisis (and, as Karl’s Schuhmann’s controversial analyses of some ambiguous private letters show, Husserl might not have been entirely immune to the promises of a German revolution).Patočka has once remarked that the teleological vocation of Europe was formulated by Husserl precisely on the eve of when it was destined to collapse. Such a claim, however, overlooks both the dimensions of Husserl’s teleology and the way in which the primal foundation (Urstiftung) and actualization of philosophy – the specificity of Europe according to Husserl – is capable of renewal and reconfiguration through self-reflection. Maybe Husserl’s Europe could thus be compared to the heritage of the Enlightenment, rather than to Hegel’s, as Patočka did. Husserl’s move towards the claim of phenomenology as a self-reflective foundational enterprise in the 1920s and his further elaboration of it with respect to history in the 1930s could be thus conceived as a conscious answer to the challenges of his time, an implementation of this very program and an attempt to realise the unity of theory and praxis.

Ovidiu Stanciu, “Europe and the Oblivion of the World”

In the 6th paragraph of the Krisis, Husserl bemoans that an engherzige Vernunft1 (“a narrow-minded reason”, or literally “small-hearted reason”) has established a monopole over the meaning of reason, reducing it to its technical sense and leading the humanity that lives according to it (in other terms the European humanity) to a drastic dismay. The cure to such a situation does not lie in the relinquishment of reason as such, but rather in the rediscovery of a grossherzige Vernunft, of a reason capable not only of progressing from a discursive sequence to another, but equally able to give an account of its own emergence. The radical account he gives of the crisis of the “European humanity” leads Husserl to question the appearance of reason as such, as well as its ambiguous relation to the world-life from which it proceeds. The way Husserl conceives the overcoming the “technical” (that is engherzige) sense of reason is

1 E. Husserl, Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die Transendentale Phänomenologie, Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1950, p. 14.

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through a Rückfrage2 (question-in-return), which aims to grasp and therefore to re-actualize the emergence of reason out of a world that does not include it. The European crisis is, hence, a crisis of its own reason, and a reflective return to its origins appears to be the only way out.The purpose of our enquiry is to lay out Jan Patocka’s criticism of this Husserlian position. The core of his argument can be rendered as follows3: not only had Husserl maintained a restricted meaning of reason in as much as he relates it solely to the achievements of science, but the concept of world he puts forward is also biased by his subjectivistic position. For Patocka, the main consequence of Husserl’s characterization of science as the only field where reason (even in its grossherzige version) can be displayed is the adhesion to a refined form of Euro-centrism: as if, “the ideal of the European ratio represents the universal entelechy of humanity”4. The underlying assumption of this thesis is the conviction that the depth of the world cannot emerge unless it is captured in a process of idealisation, unless it is related to a subjective form of infinitisation. On the contrary, for Patocka, “the mystery of the world can shine wherever life, in its simplicity and inexhaustibility arises”5. It is this extended meaning of the world that makes possible not only the re-enactment of the “forgotten traditions”6, but also the shaping of a sense of reason that encompasses also its scientific form.The criticism Patocka addresses to Husserl’s idea of Europe does not lead him to reject the very principle of Europe. On the contrary: “Europe has drawn two paths towards the opening of our planet: the exterior path of conquest and of universal hegemony, which has lead to its wreck as a historical reality; but also the internal path of the opening of the world, of the becoming-world of the different Lebenwelten. The latter path needs to be today rediscovered and followed up to its end”7. It is also through following this path that we can give an account of the Patockian idea of a “post-European humanity”.

12:15 - 13:00Teresa Pullano, “The Becoming Territorial of Europe”

Lunch

14:00 - 14:45Dagmar Wilhem, “Habermas and Europe”

This paper will examine Habermas’ position on the “European Project”.  I will distinguish his philosophical position, which combines his theory of discursive democracy and legitimacy of the state with his analysis of the effects of globalization, and his polemical stance as put forward in various newspaper publications, most notably the “Manifesto” , published simultaneously in Le Monde  and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. I will argue that, while his

2 Cf. P. Ricœur, « L’originaire et la question-en-retour dans la Krisis de Husserl » in A l’école de la phénoménologie, Paris : Vrin, 1986, p. 287 sqq.3 We are following here the argument Patocka develops in a manuscript published in French under the title « Réflexions sur l’Europe » in Jan Patocka, Liberté et sacrifice, Grenoble: Millon, 1990, p. 181-213.4 Ibid, p. 212.5 Ibid.6 Ibid.7 J. Patocka, L’Europe après l’Europe, Lagrasse : Verdier, 2007, p. 43.

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polemics fulfill an important role apart from communicating his opinions, the views on Europe they reveal ought to be rejected – even on Habermas’ own (philosophical) terms. His philosophical theory, on the other hand, offers a potent justification of the European Project and can serve as a standard against which the current institution can be critized and reforms be formulated. However, even here Habermas can be found wanting, since he fails to offer compelling reasons for why we should regard supra-national organisations (like the EU) as the best way of organising “global domestic policy”.

Coffee break

15:00 - 16:30 Paths in European PhilosophyKarin Kuchler, “A Genealogy of the History of European Philosophy”

The project presented addresses the question of eurocentrism in philosophy and the historiography of philosophy by drawing on postcolonial and poststructural theory. Europe and philosophy have two things before all in common: both are subjects of a narrative that is both special and peculiar; and that narrative, on the other hand, is special by virtue of its special subjects. This makes one the definiens of the other – at a certain point in history, they even appear to be interchangeable. The other trait shared by Europe and (European) philosophy is their claim to universality. This claim of one tradition alone, however, cannot be upheld any longer. Historical evidence has shown that several birthplaces of philosophy can look back onto very long traditions of practice. Furthermore, the European itself as the subject of history has become questionable in the light of postcolonial theory.In 1791, just sixty years after Johann Jakob Brucker had for the first time written about a European philosophy in his Kurtzen Fragen zur philosophischen Historie, Dieterich Tiedemann not only exluded any non-European philosophy from the history of philosophy: He explicitly proscribes any mention thereof. Along with this exclusion arose the complete historization of philosophy as an academic discipline in 19th century universities, and the climax of a philosophy of history that gave cause and legitimacy to the brutal colonization of the planet by European powers. Both narratives engage figures of speech that first appear in the construction of a European philosophy. Hence, it represents a hiatus that offers both form and pattern for eurocentrism in philosophy.The question I would like to pose in the archives of histories of philosophy and other philosophical writing is, in which way the order of knowledge has changed as to make it possible to speak of European philosophy as both the only, and universally valid philosophy. After a thorough explication of the history of eurocentrism in general and in the history of the historiography of scholarship, the claim to hegemony that was founded in the writing of the history of philosophy in early enlightenment will be analyzed by way of discourse analysis. Methodological background for this approach lies in the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said. The demonstration of how it became possible to speak of European philosophy as the only and universal form of philosophy is not only relevant to the self-conception and practice of philosophy as an academic discipline. It can also contribute to the appreciation and understanding of cultural production in all regions of the world.

Witold Płotka, “Solidarity, responsibility and Europe:Ingarden, Tischner, and Wojtyła in the face of the Soviet Ideology”

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The Polish trade union ‘Solidarity’ was a milestone for democratic changes in the central Europe of the 1980’s. The paper concerns a problem of phenomenological grounds of the idea of solidarity. More generally, the paper rises the question of the possibility of establishing solidarity in a phenomenological analysis of responsibility and human being. I plan to focus on three important thinkers of the soviet period in Poland, i.e., Roman Ingarden, Jozef Tischner, and Karol Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II).Ingarden is a pupil of Husserl, however, he criticizes his teacher for falling into idealism. He claims that a phenomenological reduction and a conception of constitution conceives the real world as a mere correlate. His Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt (1947) presents an attempt to establish ontology as a main discipline for a philosophical analysis that remains as a realist approach. In his later philosophy, Ingarden considers the question of ontological grounds for responsibility. This analysis leads beyond narrow limits of theoretical dispute between idealism and realism. In particular, Ingarden’s later philosophy presents a horizon for considerations of the question of phenomenological grounds of community and solidarity. This philosophy, however, seems to lead to solipsism, at least in the field of ethics.Tischner – a student of Ingarden and the author of The Dispute over the Existence of a Man (1998) – criticizes an ontological approach towards responsibility and human being as too narrow, since it presents a man as an abstract ego-subject. Therefore, Tischner postulates to introduce a dialogical view on human being, and by doing so, to deepen a communal view on human. In result, Tischner’s philosophy offers a more accurate basis (than Ingarden’s approach) for consideration of the question of communal life, and he uses his phenomenological apparatus to analyze solidarity, e.g., in The Spirit of Solidarity (1984) (originally presented on the first congress of ‘Solidarity’ in Gdansk and published as The Ethics of Solidarity (1981)). Nonetheless, also Tischner’s philosophy seems to fall into solipsism, however, it is useful to establish ethics for small communities. Wojtyła introduces into phenomenology two important elements that were absent in Ingarden’s and Tischner’s philosophies, namely he postulates to presuppose personalism and some of Marxist ideas. For this reason, his theory of a person enables one to analyse community and communal character of human beings.By questioning the three conceptions of phenomenology of responsibility and solidarity, the paper outlines main points of an analysis of community and its ethical grounds. In result, the paper formulates a hypotheses that a pure phenomenological analysis of solidarity is impossible, if one postulates to comprehend solidarity as a kind of praxis (e.g., as a trade union); the analysis lacks a normative level.

Tamara Caraus, “Jacques Derrida and Europe’s ‘double duties’”

At the end of The Other Heading Derrida presents a list of Europe’s double duties. The topics of duties are topics that Derrida analysed at length in his other writings: memory, inheritance, promise, hospitality, capital, critique, faith, reason and Enlightenment, democracy, responsibility. (Chronologically The Other Heading was written before several of the texts dealing with these topics, but this fact just stresses the continuity of Derrida’s philosophy).The great themes of (late) deconstruction are assigned to Europe as duties and every duty is double because it supposes obeying two contradictory laws. The contradictory laws themselves steam from a deconstructed concept, which contains an undecidable, an aporia, a contradiction, a double constraint, a double bind. For example, the deconstructed concept of

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responsibility contains at least a double constraint: to satisfy both the demand of transparency and secrecy and exactly in this form the responsibility is assigned to Europe as double duty: “This same duty calls for responsibility to think, speak and act… but also for respecting whatever refuses a certain responsibility”(The Other Heading, p.79). In this text, Derrida overburdens Europe with duties, responsibilities and deconstructed concepts, because Europe must be more responsible than the rest of the world, or even responsible for the rest of the world (to exceed in being responsible), without repeating the mistakes of Eurocentrism. The overburdened with double duties Europe might resemble a kind of self-sacrifice for (the heading of) the other. At the same time, this newly ‘deconstructed’ Europe that performs vigilantly and incessantly its double duties is presented as a new hope for the others, with the inevitable superiority and ideality of a hope. However, in this context in order to detangle Derrida’s affirmation of Europe from its involuntary impulsions towards Eurocentrism, one must clarify if it is wrong to be someone else’s hope, and not a hope as an ordinary waiting for something, but a hope for an impossible future to come. This paper intends to analyse why and how the great themes of (late) deconstruction are assigned to Europe as duties and to explore whether this Derrdian approach of Europe is a discourse of a ‘deconstructed Europe’, focusing on the following questions: How different is the Europe as promise from Europe considered a vanguard of the entire humanity (as in the texts of Valery or Husserl for example)? Is Europe-to-come a Europe beyond Eurocentrism? How is the idea of Europe, as all ideas, related to philosophy and more exactly to Derridian philosophy? How does the deconstructed idea of Europe look like? Is the idea of “provincialized Europe” compatible Derrida’s idea of (deconstructed) Europe? Why is deconstructed Europe identified with hope and promise? etc. All these questions are addressed and examined in the concrete contexts while reading and analysing Derrida’s texts on the idea of Europe.

Break

18:30 - 20:00 Evening lecture (In Partnership With the Bristol Festival of Ideas)

“What is the Meaning Of Europe?”HE Michael Žantovský (Ambassador of the Czech Republic to The United Kingdom)Respondents: Teresa Pullano and Anya Topolski

Conference Dinner - Bordeaux Quay Brasserie. Canon's Rd, Bristol, BS1 5UH

20:30 –

10th May

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9:00 – 10:30 Boundaries and JusticeGiovanni Savino, “Russia and Europe: a self-image or the “Other”?

Russia as self-image (Selbstverständnis) of the Europe, or as the radical “Other”? The dilemma is recurrent in the history of relations between West and East of the European space, with consequences for the political, philosophical and social spheres.Starting with the Napoleon attack to the Russian Empire in 1812, the Contemporary Era saw many times the question of the European model inside the elite. Last two centuries were a reflection of this debate inside Russian society, that had different implications in defining the identities inside and outside of the country, and contributed to the emergence of diverse approaches to the question.In this paper I'd like to discuss how the conflict between the “Eastern” and the “Western” (i.e. European) options had determined the European-Russian encounters, from the Decabrists till the current political issues in the Russian Federation. The theme of Europe as the arena for the Russian future is still common, and was actual for the Russian Socialdemocracy during the World War I, as for the Kadets' and Nationalists' programs to enforce the ties with the Entente. In the cultural sphere, Europe was the place were scholars went to improve their works, to study and teach at German and British universities, and to take ideas to import inside the Russian public opinion.Against Europe were proposed other options, from the Slavophile and Panslavist ideas till the Neoeurasianism, trying to definy a different space (Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire and the USSR themselves, or the Eurasian community from Lisbon to Vladivostok), imbued with Traditionalist values.Today, there is an idealization and a reduction of the idea of Europe inside the Russian public. Europe as the most advanced space for the educations and Democratic values, as the nightmare of same-sex marriage and laicism for the Conservative values. The question posed by Dieter Groh's work in 1961, if Russia and the Occident (i.e. Europe) have common goals and ideals is still actual, and dramatically has a meaning for the elaboration of our continent.

Erik De Bom, “A Grand Illusion? Justice and the Boundaries of Europe”

Despite a lack of enthousiasm among the member states, the European Union has steadily enlarged. Beginning with a club of six founding countries in 1951 the Union consists of 28 member states at the moment. And at least 8 countries have a prospect of joining the EU at a certain moment. This begs the question of where the borders of the EU will be drawn in the end. Since for many people the European Union is synonymous for Europe, they take a geographical criterion to settle the question. However, Europe has no natural borders which makes it very difficult to determine where Europe ends and other continents begin.In this paper I am leaving the geographical criterion for what it is. It is of no assistance and, more important, it is irrelevant from an ethical perspective. For that will be my point of departure, since I want to approach the EU’s border problem from a normative point of view by asking where the boundaries should be drawn. More specifically, I shall single out one value which should hold a central place in the construction and identity of the EU. That is justice. According to liberal nationalists only the nation state is the site by excellence where justice could be enforced and practiced. Contrary to them, defenders of global justice have asserted that it is the globe as a whole which should be the site of justice. It is, however, not clear whether a middle position would be possible. To what extent could one speak of justice beyond the nation state that is not encompassing the whole world? In other words: what are the boundaries of the EU understood as a transnational project of which justice is the defining characteristic?

Carl Cederberg, “A New Narrative for Europe?”

In various statements in Brussels, Warsaw and Milan in 2013, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, prompts intellectuals, scientists, artists for a new narratives for Europe, to “breathe life in the European spirit”. In the Milan speech, Barroso specifies the humanist project as the most central: “At the core of the European vision is the human dignity of every human being”.

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So in some sense, the deciding features of the requested narrative is already written. And who could be against it? If we decide that Europe shall be the continent of humanity, we take a clear stand against nationalism and totalitarianism.This narrative is not new, however. Hegel, the grand narrator of Europe, like Barroso, saw Europe as the inventor and guardian of universal humanity: the origin of universality. Hegel’s story of Europe’s humanization of the world did not shy away from colonialism’s most brutal aspect, slavery. Slavery, “in itself an injustice”, was still “the occasion of the increase of human feeling among the Negroes”, a “phase of education”. When we read Hegel today, it is all too clear that this is ideology. War and slavery was never justified by any would-be education or Europeanisation of the world. So what good is there in confusing universal ideals with the identity of a continent? Does not this weaving together of a continent with universal ideals remind us of the USA? Do not Europeans point fingers at America for claiming to be the land of free, all the while allowing for new and inventive forms of holding people prisoner without trials? The US government, say the Europeans, seems to be so sure to be the defender of freedom and Human Rights, that it blinds itself to the restrictions and infringements that it imposes on its own citizens and of other countries. So does Barroso’s request for narratives not return us to Hegel, who asked his listeners to believe in the rationality of history in spite of the cruel events that frame it?But on the other hand, if the idea of such historical narrative is dismissed, do we then stand before the dilemma of ahistorical universalism and outright nationalist egoism? Is it still possible to “think” the origin of universality? In my presentation I shall examine this with the help of two thinkers who refused the Hegelian narrative, Jan Patočka and Emmanuel Levinas. Even if they explicitly oppose Hegel, they still approach this strange conglomeration of ideas: Europe and universalism, trying to find a story of ethical responsibility at the core of the European narrative. In the light of the setting above, how are we to read these philosophers – as ideologists or critics?

10:30 - 11:15 James Mensch, “The Living Temporality of European Identity”

The question of Europe has been raised continually. Behind it is the division of the continent into different peoples, languages, and cultures, all in close proximity to one another. Their plurality and proximity led to the opposing imperatives of trade and war. Since ancient times, the need to promote trade and the desire to prevent war have driven the search for a basis for European unity. Various candidates, from that of Roman law in ancient times to the current economic and regulatory union of today have been tried. Such bureaucratic solutions, however, have not proved sufficient. They regulate the outside, but do not touch what is within. Even Kant’s enlightenment project and Husserl’s renewal of this in his conception of the universal rational vocation of Europe fail to capture what is specifically European. The spread of such rationality—particularly in its scientific form—has not made the world “European.” Still less, in its abstract quality, has it captured what is essential to Europe. To move from the external to the internal, from the abstract to the concrete, we must turn from our external circumstances to the way that we internalize them. In what follows, I will argue that it is in terms of such internalization that we find the special character of European identity. The living temporality of this internalization will be shown to be over-determined and in conflict with itself. The connection of Europe to philososphy will be seen to result from such over-determination.

Coffee

11:30 - 12:30 Identities and CrisisFrancesco Tava, “The Brave Struggle. On the Possibility of a Post-European Community”

How can a concept like “post-Europe” be useful to conceive an idea of inclusive community? Defining the peculiarities of the post-European perspective, Jan Patočka particularly emphasized the brave struggle of the individual who is able both to detach from and to be involved in his historical and political reality. This individual is often defined as an “open-soul” or as a “spiritual man”, i.e. as a subject who is willing to expose himself to a fatal danger. Imagining these individuals gathering together means to conceive a new idea of community, whose essential ground would not consists in any idea of identity, but rather in “what divides”, in che capacity to open itself to the otherness, without any preventive closure. The aim of this paper consists in

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questioning the possibility of this community, starting from Patočka’s idea of post-Europe, with a special regard to the present political context.

Anya Topolski, “A Genealogy of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ Signifier: A Tale of Europe’s Identity Crisis”

After a prolonged and controversial debate, the European Union Parliament voted not to include a reference to Europe’s ‘Judeo-Christian’ heritage in the preamble to its 2004 draft constitution. Nonetheless, this parliamentary discussion provoked a broader public debate on Europe’s past, its symbolic foundations and its identity. For some national leaders this debate enabled them to revive a dormant and divisive populist rhetoric. For others, it was evidence of a general public interest in the question of European identity and values, and thus a chance to re-think the past ‘idea of Europe’ in terms of a Europe ‘to come’. The most contested article of the draft constitution concerned the relationship between Europe’s core values and religion – whether exclusively Christian, Judeo-Christian, secular or ‘other’. While the ‘idea of Europe’ had once been defined in relation to Christendom, the question was what, if any, identity a secular or Judeo-Christian or religious Europe ‘to come’ could provide? It is for this reason that a genealogy of the signifier ‘Judeo-Christian’ tells a tale of Europe’s identity crisis – not only now but also during the 19 th century when the term was first coined by F.C. Baur, the founder of the German Protestant Tubingen School. Within a half-century, the term Judeo-Christian was replaced by a philological distinction between Aryan and Semitic languages (and later peoples), a journey I trace by means of selected writings of Nietzsche and Ernest Renan. Given this signifier’s disconcerting genealogy, its reappearance in Europe after the Shoah and specifically at the height of the EU’s identity crisis – is highly perplexing. It’s current claim to be inclusive and to acknowledge Europe’s exclusionary past suggests that this signifier has been emptied of its previous signification. The question I examine is what are the political stakes, in relation to European identity-formation, of these two appearances of the signifier ‘Judeo-Christian’ in European discourse. It is my contention that its current usage in Europe is as a masked means to exclude Islam from Europe ‘to come’, an exclusion that echoes an earlier exclusion of Judaism from the ‘idea of Europe’ already present in its 19th century usage.

Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Re-thinking PatočkaDaniel Leufer, “The Negative Power of an Idea: Jan Patočka on the Idea of Europe”

In his Heretical Essays on the Philosophy of History, Jan Patočka sees the First World War as signalling the end of any old, noble idea of Europe, and as ushering in an era of fundamentally nihilistic politics. Unlike previous wars which had justified their bloodshed and destruction in the name of higher ideals, Patočka sees the Great War as being driven by a belief that there are no such higher ideals and that it is thus up to man to establish his own values through pure force. The philosophical outcome of this has been a total loss of faith in the idea that Europe is progressing towards some higher destiny, the loss, that is, of the idea of Europe as a great human project. My aim in this paper is to analyse Europe as a philosophical idea in terms of Patočka’s ‘negative Platonism’ in order to answer two questions: firstly, why did the First World War lead to the collapse of Europe as a philosophical idea, and, secondly, how is it possible to re-conceptualize Europe after this collapse? To answer the first of these questions, I will begin by examining Patočka’s critique of Platonic and post-Platonic metaphysics from his essay ‘Negative Platonism’. In this work, Patočka argues that the entirety of Western metaphysics has been based on a misunderstanding of the Socratic question of the Good. As he sees it, metaphysics as a ‘science’ was born in the attempt to provide the Platonic Idea of the Good with a definitive content. Philosophically speaking, the history of Europe can be seen as intimately tied to this attempt to constitute a science of metaphysics, which, based as it was upon a misunderstanding, was always doomed to fail. For Patočka, that failure culminated in a spectacular and horrific fashion with the First World War and resulted in the simultaneous collapse of all the once great ideals of European civilization.In order to approach the task of re-conceptualizing Europe after this collapse, I will look at Patočka’s radical re-thinking of the Platonic Idea as fundamentally negative. Seen from this perspective, the Idea lacks all positive content, but can nevertheless function as a unifying ideal and a way of critiquing concrete reality. My argument will be that by looking at the idea of Europe in such a way, it is possible to re-conceptualize Europe as a philosophical idea in a way which has much to offer 21st Century political thought.

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Riccardo Paparusso, “Patočka’s Conception of the End of History. Rethinking Kojève’s idea of post-history”

The Patočka’s idea of «post-Europe» could be read also as the result of the development of a particular elaboration of the notion of «end of history», therefore, as the effect of an implicit confrontation with the thematization of the idea of «post-history» offered by Alexandre Kojève in his book entitled Introduction to the reading of Hegel8.In his thematization of the idea of «Europe» and «post-Europe», Patočka sometimes uses the categories of «end of history» and «post-history» but he never proposes an explicit and deep thematization of this question. In the paper here proposed, I will attempt to explicit the idea of «end of history» that flows through the Patočka’s philosophy of history. By following this direction I will start from the analysis of the 1975’s text entitled Christianity and natural world9, that offers some elements to define the idea of «end of history» which crosses the Patočka’s thought of history.It is helpful quoting some lines from the above mentioned text, where Patočka writes: «I believe that history, in the proper sense of the word, is always a history of a certain kind of setting-upright of man (napřímení) over his biological stage. At the same time, this elevation is a fight against all the threats to which man is exposed and which loom over him, starting from his biological basis and from his own historical creations. The latter, in fact, open up ever-renewed possibilities of falling back below the level of freedom that was originally reached. This end is conceived by this point of view and not, therefore, by some position analogous to the Christian conception»10.By getting to the conclusion his thematization, the Czech philosopher puts the following question: «[…]How is it possible that man, having emerged from the pre-historical stage and crossed the historical process, could have returned to that biological level?»11. On the basis of these quotations, we could affirm that in Jan Patočka’s thought, the “end of history” should not be seen as a definitive completion of the historical process, but rather as the consumption of the European spirit and, indeed, as the reconfiguration of the prehistoric world, where the man consecrates himself to the care for the naked life and lives as an animal. In other words, Patočka overturns the schema of Kojèvian conception of «post-history». The Russian philosopher, indeed, defines ‒ from a Hegelian standpoint ‒ the end of history as realization of the «realm of freedom» and of a complete recognition among human beings12. Nevertheless, by a deeper reading of Kojève’s book, we could understand the Patočkian idea of «end of history» as the development of a possibility that implicitly lies in the Kojèvian philosophy of history. Indeed, in the famous note on post-history contained in Introduction a la lecture de Hegel Kojeve writes: «the disappearance of Man at the end of History, therefore, is not a cosmic catastrophe: the natural World remains what it has been from all eternity. And therefore is not a biological catastrophe either: Man remains alive as animal in harmony with Nature or given Being»13. By starting from the analysis of this sentence I will attempt to thematize the Kojèvian inheritance of Patočka’s post-European-history.

Giuseppe Menditto, “‘Das Geheimnis Europas’. Myth and Metaphor between Patočka and Blumenberg”

8 Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the reading of Hegel. Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1980). 9 Jan Patočka, “Křesťanství a přirozený svět” (Christianity and Natural World), in Patočka, Jan, Přirozený svĕt a lidské existence (The Natural World and the Movement of Human Existence) [Praha: Archive Material (Samizdat): 1980]. 10 Ibid. 13.11 Ibid. 17.12 Cf., Kojève, Introduction to the reading of Hegel, 158.13 Ibid. 158.

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In connection with Patočka's expression of Weltgeheimnis as not totalizable phenomenon, the present proposal would like to foreground the possibility of relating to a philosophical concept of Europe without a figurative support. In this sense it will be stressed which role does play the ontological a-thematic metaphor which Patočka refers to in the Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History and the persistence of figurative elements, such as explicit themed and not methaphorical registers, through the “historical” investigation about Europe and post-Europe. Such a metaphorological interest, in Blumenberg's sense, has to discuss, first of all, in which way the by Patočka so called mythical world is possible in virtue of an ontological metaphor of “acceptance” and “chaining”, that affect the “modest but reliable” meaningful of the prehistoric world and generates the “ontological” difference beetwen men and gods. At this level methapor should be used by men as a-problematic support to connect themselves to the divine world and at the same time to take an initial distance from it (this Patočka's topic that is usually assigned to the historical freedom could be compared with Blumenberg's notion of mythical Entlastung).My first point concerns on one hand the role of ontological metaphor according to Patočka and on the other hand the methaporical purpose used to describe the mythical set: the “a-problematic” consideration of a mythical world passes through a “clearless” determination, the “self-evidence” of the “consumption” of a life for life, the movement between “concealment” and “unveiling” of the philosophical problematicity, the “contact” between work and starting responsible life that at the sametime “hides” the full “vision” of it, the “fascinating” between work and death.By means of the “shock” and “transition” from a pre-historical to a fully historical dimension a methaporical discourse in Patočka's reflection seems to loose appeal: even if the thematization itself of a “deeper” movement from a new problematic dimension toward itself has become conceptually self-sufficient, Patočka is forced to employ figurative elements that in his analysis abridge the gap with the previous step and, in the meanwhile, make more problematic the by Patočka himself so defined “heresy” towards the occidental philosophical and phenomenological discontinuity (i.e. the epistemic referring to the general methaphors of “gaze” and “rooting”).By this way the impossibility of a pure conceptual “anamnesis” of Europe seems not to be characterized without bringing out some recurrent figure as, next to the medical-biological metaphorical registers of the techno-scientific "amputation" and the "catastrophe" of the european "form", the "vision" of the whole of the world as such (not just the evidence of a gaze, but a new lighted openness) and a “conflict” between the reflexive and rational request of european tradition as “vision” and the “inheritances” of its tradition: these aspects could be taken into account because of not always awared purpose and in order to identify some topic that discuss the whole of Patočka’s “heretical” investigation.

15:30 - 16:15Darian Meacham, “The Crisis of the European Sciences and the Crisis of European Society”

How helpful are phenomenological concepts like 'Crisis' to our understanding of the current European situation? Is there any relation between the Crisis of the European sciences and the current European crisis? For Husserl the idea of Crisis extended beyond the special sciences. Indeed, the first part of his Crisis text is entitled "The Crisis of the Sciences as Expression of the Radical Life-Crisis of European Humanity". In his later writings on the lifeworld Jan Patočka expands upon the motif of Crisis, criticizing Husserl for not seeing it's full depth and deepening its social and political relevance. The crisis of European humanity has resulted in the situation where what Patočka calls the "metaphysics of force" holds sway over all aspects of the lifeworld. In his notes on the 'post-European era' Patočka remarks upon the transformation of political liberalism into business politics, and the 'massification of all life under the perilous form of industrial productivism'. In this presentation I will argue that the motifs that one finds in Husserl's and Patočka's analysis of Crisis can also help us to understand the current European Crisis. I will introduce and discuss three manners in which the idea of crisis may be helpful in analyzing the current situation: the so-called democratic deficit at the level of European politics, the Euro as a world-currency without the institutions of a national intersubjectivity, and finally the crisis of the language of the crisis itself.      

Coffee break

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16:45 - 17:30Karel Novotný, “Europe and Post-Europe in the Philosophical Reflections of Jan Patocka”

Jan Patočka’s work presents a comprehensive answer to the challenge of the post-European epoch of history. Indeed, he makes an appeal to a new spirituality, one that would yield a common, transcendental and deeper ground for humanity. There is, however, a fundamental peculiarity at the heart of Patočka’s analysis insofar as this new spirituality emerges out of the experience of meaninglessness. In fact, meaninglessness constitutes a condition for the possibility of what Patočka sees as a post-Europe’s spiritual principle, viz. ‚care for the soul’. Can such a principle be universalized and thereby avoid the failures of western, european metaphysics? If not, then what makes Patočka’s principle ‚post’-European? Understanding Patočka’s philosophy of history as informed by a critical examination of one’s historical Zeitgeist may provide important insights to such questions. Thinking critically about the fundamental concepts that govern our manner of thinking could open ourselves to a transformative encounter with the Other.

Closing Remarks

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