Europe, the very idea is a series on the philosophical notion of Europe and what reflection upon it can lend to the sphere of concrete politics.
Czechoslovaks carry their national flag past a burning Soviet tank in Prague, Jan.,1968. Wikicommons/ CIA. Some rights reserved.The 1960s represented a watershed moment in Jan Patočka’s life and work. From 1968 (the year of the Prague spring) onward, his philosophy takes on a practical as well as theoretical purpose. His philosophical research aims at the understanding of the human condition through a historical analysis, which is not addressed from a chronological point of view but from rather an anthropological one: history is the history of the human. In fact, we can understand the human condition only through the knowledge of history and its mistakes. The aim of a study of history was not simply then to reveal the events of the past and their logic, but to make humans conscious of their role in the world, in order to try and improve it.
