Aither 26/2021 (International issue no. 9):60-77 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2022.004

Europa als Sorge für die Seele

Martin Cajthaml

Palacký University Olomouc

In this paper, I offer a synthetic presentation of Jan Patočka’s account of the spiritual roots of Europe. On this account, the most fundamental principle of Europe’s spiritual life is the so-called care for the soul (epimeleia tés psychés). From the very beginning, Patočka argues, the principle had two forms: the Democritean and the Socratic-Platonic one. The Democritean was characterized by an unworldly contemplation of the unchangeable principles of the universe. In the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul, the contemplative element has only a subordinated role. At least as important was the ethical-political and the eschatological dimension. The ethical-political dimension centered around the idea of a just polis, in which “the philosophers will not have to die.” Key to the eschatological dimension was the question of the eternal destiny of the soul. In this eschatological vision, the soul acquired a new level of interiority and was set into relation to the fundamental moral order of good and evil. In the European spiritual history, the Democritean spiritual attitude prepared for a unilateral objectivist and depersonalized conception of the universe. By contrast, the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul paved the way for later European ethical-political and eschatological ideals. The loss of this latter form of the care for the soul is, Patočka argues, the ultimate root of the spiritual crisis of modern Europe.

Accepted: April 4, 2022; Published: May 4, 2022  Show citation