SCA – the spirit of our times

_{6 Nov 2021}

School of Critical Arts presents
The Spirit of Our Times: “It’s the Pandemic, Stupid!”
A free lecture, presented by Ľubica Učník

Saturday 6 Nov, 6pm–8pm

In this paper, taking inspiration from Jan Patočka’s paper “Supercivilisation and its Internal Conflict” from the 1950s as well as his writings from the 1970s, I will propose a different way to read the tension between scientific reasoning and human existence that we are witnessing today. I suggest that Patočka’s reflections from these different periods reveal these to be two sides of the same coin, a displacement of humans from the world. On the one hand, Patočka shows how techno-science changed human relations to nature; on the other, what he calls the “anthropological era,” is reflective of changes in philosophy starting with René Descartes, whereby the world and humans were irreversibly separated. The tension is between objectivity and subjectivity, which is a tension within modern reason itself, now recast as “abstract ratio.”