Volume 7, 2007
Jan Patočka and the European Heritage
Emilie Tardivel
Pages 435-463
La Subjectivité dissidente
Étude sur Patočka
Patočka has never developed the political and historical concept of dissidence. But trying to sketch its phenomenological foundation in the writings of the Czech philosopher, who experienced human liberty as an act of dissidence, could be an original way in qualifying his alternative idea of the modern subjectivity in phenomenology: between finitude and autonomy. The first part of the article presents the radical criticism aimed by Patočka to the transcendental subjectivism of Husserl, and thinks the requirement of a split between autofoundation and autonomy. Then, it is analysed the articulation between the movement of life and the movement of existence, in which lies the very idea of dissidence. In a third and final part, one shows to what extent the dissident subjectivity fully reveals itself in the political life.