Monographs by Martin Ritter
Springer, 2019
Critically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech ph... more Critically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the book brings a new voice into contemporary philosophical discussions. It elucidates the development of Patočka's phenomenology and offers a critical appropriation of his work by connecting it with non-phenomenological approaches. The first half of the book offers a succinct, and systematizing, overview of Patočka's phenomenology throughout its development to help readers appreciate the motives behind and grounds for its transformations. The second half systematically explicates, critically examines and creatively develops Patočka's concept of the movement of existence as the most promising part of his asubjective phenomenology. The book appeals to new readers of Patočka as well as his scholars, and to students and researchers of contemporary philosophy concerned with topics such as embodiment, personal identity, intersubjectivity, sociality, or historicity. By reassessing Patočka's philosophy of history and his civilizational analysis, it also helps to better articulate the question of the place of Europe in the post-European world.
OIKOYMENH, 2018
Kniha nabízí celkovou interpretaci myšlení Waltera Benjamina prostřednictvím výkladu jeho teorie ... more Kniha nabízí celkovou interpretaci myšlení Waltera Benjamina prostřednictvím výkladu jeho teorie pravdy. Pravda je podle Benjamina ve věcech samých, nikoli v poznání, ve světě však není vyjádřena dokonale, a Benjamin si proto klade otázku, jakými poznávacími a výrazovými prostředky ji lze zpřítomnit. Zpřítomnění pravdy přitom není jen teoretickým problémem, ale také problémem etickým a politickým, ba dokonce eschatologickým: Pravda si žádá své zpřítomnění, svou aktualizaci, a je proto zapotřebí změnit, spasit svět. Rekonstrukce Benjaminovy teorie pravdy tak umožňuje ukázat provázanost teoretických a praktických, materialistických a náboženských momentů Benjaminova myšlení.
Filosofia, 2009
Rekonstrukce filosofie jazyka Waltera Benjamina, která kombinuje close reading Benjaminových text... more Rekonstrukce filosofie jazyka Waltera Benjamina, která kombinuje close reading Benjaminových textů s kontrapozicí různých interpretačních přístupů k jeho myšlení.
Papers by Martin Ritter
Kritický posthumanismus, 2024
The primary aim of the article is to present posthumanism as an approach needed in the era of the... more The primary aim of the article is to present posthumanism as an approach needed in the era of the Anthropocene. By posthumanism, I mean a way of thinking that overcomes the weaknesses of humanism and emphasizes the essential interconnectedness of human beings with their environment. With regard to this "ecological" dimension of posthumanism, I will focus on the relationship between humans and technology, drawing on Bernard Stiegler. Stiegler's reflections show that in the era of the Anthropocene human beings have become an irrational force that pulls the rest of the living beings into a spiral of destruction through the technological system they have established in the shared terrestrial environment. This environment is an organ of the planetarily influential and at the same time planetarily dependent humanity, which must therefore assume responsibility for the Earth.
Philosophy & Technology , 2024
Characterizing the contemporary world as massively entropic and pointing to the proletarianizatio... more Characterizing the contemporary world as massively entropic and pointing to the proletarianization of human beings, Bernard Stiegler claims that we need to "bifurcate". This paper clarifies what he means by bifurcation and examines the conditions necessary for its occurrence. After explaining how Stiegler's general organology provides a framework for his assessment of our present, the paper focuses on how humans can become capable of producing bifurcations. Emphasizing that bifurcation must occur in relation to technology, the paper identifies it as an inventive disclosure of a current system that transforms both technology and us through the creation of knowledge. It then shows that although the problem of our time is primarily one of automatization, we must deal with it through internalization rather than disautomatization. Our very humanity is being disrupted because we are not realizing the possibilities offered by the development of technology, and this can only be achieved if we internalize technology. The process of internalizing technology is itself bifurcative and enables us to overcome our proletarianization.
Filosofický časopis, 2024
V závěrečné části Kacířských esejů o filosofii dějin Patočka tematizuje 20. století a formuluje t... more V závěrečné části Kacířských esejů o filosofii dějin Patočka tematizuje 20. století a formuluje tezi, podle níž celé toto období je stoletím války. Přítomná stať identifikuje hlavní argumenty podporující tuto tezi a rozebírá Patočkovy úvahy o tom, jak lze bytostný charakter 20. století překonat. Článek se primárně soustředí na odhalení ontologicko-antropologického rámce stojícího v základu Patočkovy argumentace, včetně představy, že zákonem světa je polemos. Konkrétněji orientované analýzy pak ukazují problematické prvky Patočkovy koncepce.
Foundations of Science, 2023
Technologies are undeniably having a decisive, transformative impact on Earth, yet the currently ... more Technologies are undeniably having a decisive, transformative impact on Earth, yet the currently prevailing empirically orientated approaches in the philosophy of technology seem unable to get to conceptual grips with this fact. Some thinkers have therefore been trying to develop alternative methods capable of clarifying it. This paper focuses on Vincent Blok's call for rehabilitating an ontologically oriented approach. It reconstructs the rationale of his method as well as its key elements and structure. Elucidating Blok's emphasis on the experience of climate change, the paper clarifies his call for a terrestrial turn in the philosophy of technology. This turn is indisputably needed, but Blok's conceptualisation of Earth is problematic: Apart from its speculative nature, it underestimates the impact of humans on Earth. Blok seeks to clarify how ontic phenomena, especially particular technologies, can have an ontological impact, but there is a friction between his Heideggerian concept of the world as grounding inner-worldly beings and the idea of technologies as founding a new world. Identifying the elements where the undoubtedly required ontological approach needs to be rethought, the paper suggests that we need more mundane conceptualisations of both Earth and the world, accompanied by more attention to ontic processes.
Philosophy & Technology, 2021
As a distinctive voice in the current philosophy of technology, postphenomenology elucidates vari... more As a distinctive voice in the current philosophy of technology, postphenomenology elucidates various ways of how technologies "shape" both the world (or objectivity) and humans (or subjectivity) in it. Distancing itself from more speculative approaches, postphenomenology advocates the so-called empirical turn in philosophy of technology: It focuses on diverse effects of particular technologies instead of speculating on the essence of technology and its general impact. Critics of postphenomenology argue that by turning to particularities and emphasizing that technologies are always open to different uses and interpretations, postphenomenology becomes unable to realize how profoundly technology determines our being in the world. Seeking to evaluate the postphenomenological (in)ability to radically reflect on the human being conditioned by technology, I discuss the two most pertinent criticisms of postphenomenology: an "existential" one by Robert C. Scharff and an "ontological" one by Jochem Zwier, Vincent Blok, and Pieter Lemmens. Assessing the ontological alternative, I point to incapacity of Heidegger's concept of Enframing to do justice to material technologies. Simultaneously, I acknowledge the necessity of speculating on (the concept of) technology as transcending concrete technologies. Such speculating would be instrumental in reviving Ihde's idea of non-neutrality of technology in its full philosophical potency.
Human Studies, 2021
We live in a world where it is impossible to exist without, and beyond, technologies. Despite thi... more We live in a world where it is impossible to exist without, and beyond, technologies. Despite this omnipresence, we tend to overlook their influence on us. The vigorously developing approach of postphenomenology, combining insights from phenomenology and pragmatism, focuses on the so-called technological mediation, i.e., on how technologies as mediators of human-world relations influence the appearing of both the world and the human beings in it. My analysis aims at demonstrating both the methodological weaknesses and open possibilities of postphenomenology. After summarizing its essentials, I will scrutinize, first, its ability to turn to the technological things themselves and, second, the so-called empirical turn as realized by postphenomenology. By assessing its conceptual framework from the phenomenological perspective, I hope to demonstrate that postphenomenology needs philosophical clarification and strengthening. In short, it needs a more phenomenological, and less pragmatic, approach to technology in its influence on human experience.
Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik
Die Studie ist den frühesten, von 1910 bis 1914 geschriebenen Texten von Walter Benjamin gewidmet... more Die Studie ist den frühesten, von 1910 bis 1914 geschriebenen Texten von Walter Benjamin gewidmet, vor allem ihrem grundlegenden Begriff „Jugend“. Sie führt die primären Probleme an, die Benjamin in dieser Zeit lösen und überwinden wollte. Sie soll beweisen, daß seine Texte keineswegs nur „dilettantische“ Paraphrasen der Gedanken Wynekens sind, sondern daß sie im Zusammenhang mit Benjamins Engagement in der Jugendbewegung einen eigenständigen Problemkreis berühren und einer eigenen inneren Logik gehorchen. Die Studie geht der engen Verbindung zwischen der gesellschaftlichen Wirkung, der Religion und der Kunst in Benjamins Frühschriften nach. Sie weist den inneren Zusammenhang von Benjamins Überlegungen auf und zeigt ihre logische Einmündung in die Betrachtung der Kunst.
Internationales Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie, Band 5, Heft 1, 2019
Dieser Aufsatz möchte zeigen, dass Medienphilosophie einen zentralen Bestandteil von Walter Benja... more Dieser Aufsatz möchte zeigen, dass Medienphilosophie einen zentralen Bestandteil von Walter Benjamins Denken bildet und dass erst mit der Überwindung der Annahme, Medien seien vor allem Kommunikationsmittel, eine komplexere und weitreichendere Reflexion seines Verständnisses von Medialität möglich wurde. Das Medium ist bei Benjamin kein intersubjektives Kommunikationsmittel und vorrangig auch keine Bezeichnung für ein konkretes technisches oder künstlerisch Vermittelndes, sondern eher das, worin sich Wahrnehmung vollzieht. Benjamins Denken der Medialität ist auch heute gerade deswegen fruchtbar, weil es die Medialität als solche, d. h. als grundlegendes und auf andere Phänomene nicht reduzierbares Prinzip einführt. Benjamin reduziert also Medialität nicht auf Technologien, nicht einmal in der Epoche einer »technischen Reproduzierbarkeit«, noch betrachtet er die Vermitteltheit unserer Existenz als etwas rein Ökonomisches - auch wenn seine späten Arbeiten von Karl Marx inspiriert sind.
Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik
The study pursues a confrontation between the philosophy of language of Walter Benjamin and the c... more The study pursues a confrontation between the philosophy of language of Walter Benjamin and the conception of language of H.-G. Gadamer. After the determination of the most problematic points of Gadamer’s conception, the paper explicates Benjamin’s philosophy of language and tries to identify an alternative approach to the same crux of the problem in it. This comparative analysis tries to answer the question of the proper task of understanding as well as the question of the proper concept of truth in view of this task. The analysis enables us to interpret the notion of “hermeneutical experience”, more precisely the notion of “Anwendung”, as the “translation” as it is interpreted by Benjamin.
Care of the soul is arguably the core concept in Patočka’s phenomenology. However, what is the so... more Care of the soul is arguably the core concept in Patočka’s phenomenology. However, what is the soul? In this paper I seek to determine its ontological meaning, connecting the concept of caring for the soul with that of the movement of existence. Starting from Patočka’s affirmative presentation of Aristotle’s criticism of Plato, I interrogate the ‘‘orthodox’’ Platonic concept of caring for the soul and develop an alternative notion, putting emphasis on action in the world. I demonstrate the impossibility of identifying the third movement with true existence, or with the care for the soul, whether conceived as the performance of philosophy or as political action. Finally, I outline a reinterpreted concept of care for the soul in which the (active) self-moving of the soul is not ontologically prior to (passive) responding. The soul is inherent in action; and it is free only as responding to the world and responsible only in being free.
The paper identifies asubjective elements in manuscripts written by Patočka in the first half of ... more The paper identifies asubjective elements in manuscripts written by Patočka in the first half of the 1940s. After explicating the key concept of inwardness, with which Patočka substitutes Husserl’s notion of the ego, I elucidate the world-disclosing performance of inwardness as irreducible to world-constituting activity. After this explication, the paper inspects Patočka’s method: his attempt to capture the life of inwardness subjectively. The appearing of the world, however, cannot be reduced to subjectivity, which is also revealed by Patočka’s reflection on the relation between inwardness and the things in the world. Although the war manuscripts factually point to and call for the desubjectification of phenomenology, Patočka’s adherence to transcendental phenomenology, his emphasis on life notwithstanding, does not allow for it.
Filosofický časopis, 2020
Studie osvětluje způsob Adornova kritického navázání na Hegelovu dialektiku s primárním zřetelem ... more Studie osvětluje způsob Adornova kritického navázání na Hegelovu dialektiku s primárním zřetelem k otázce vztahu mezi celkem a jednotlivinou. Nejprve ukazuji, z jakých důvodů Adorno kritizuje primát celku a na základě čeho formuluje tezi, podle níž celek je nepravda. Poté věnuji pozornost Adornově koncepci imanentní kritiky: kritika vychází z norem a hodnot, které jsou vlastní společnosti, a ukazuje jejich rozpor s realitou této společnosti. Imanentní kritiku ilustruji na pojmu a realitě lidské autonomie. Adornovo hájení jedince a jeho kritika upřednostňování celku souvisí s důrazem na somatičnost existence, která umožňuje nejhmatatelněji pocítit iracionalitu (domnělého) Rozumu. Individuální zkušenost, která nikdy není jen individuální, se tak stává oporou relevantní kritiky celku, o nějž se zároveň opírá.
In an interpretation of Jan Patočka’s late thought, the paper seeks to shed some light on the con... more In an interpretation of Jan Patočka’s late thought, the paper seeks to shed some light on the connection between Patočka’s philosophy of history and his phenomenology. His attempt to use Plato’s concept of psychê for an interpretation of the contemporary situation of Europe is set in the context of Patočka’s phenomenology. A new conception of truth, one that would take into account the problem of human responsibility, turns out as a desideratum of Patočka’s late philosophy
Jan Patočka’s early phenomenology, as presented in The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem, ... more Jan Patočka’s early phenomenology, as presented in The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem, does not merely adopt Husserl’s concept of the lifeworld. The paper demonstrates the originality of Patočka’s appropriation of this concept, but also its internal tensions and difficulties. Seeking to elaborate a concept of a phenomenology allowing for a theory of the lifeworld stricto sensu, i.e. of the life of the world, Patočka’s book effectively shows that there is no ahistorical, absolute or “natural” starting point for phenomenology. Truth, as approachable through phenomenology, is not (pre)given, but must rather be developed. Elaborating on the concept of transcendental idealism, Patočka’s early phenomenology thus suggests a vivid idea of “intermeshing” monads ontologically grounding the world.
The paper tackles Patočka’s ideas on the world crisis and on the possibility that it may be overc... more The paper tackles Patočka’s ideas on the world crisis and on the possibility that it may be overcome. The key flaw in Patočka’s approach, one which also underpins his Eurocentrism, is identified as his drawing a firm line between a free, truly historical way of life, and unfree, earthbound living. In order to sketch a usable conception, the paper reinterprets Patočka’s notion of the three movements of existence, thereby connecting his historical and political reflections with his ontological thought and also with Arendt’s concept of action. The dichotomy between earthiness and freedom, corresponding to the contrast between the first two movements and the third, is refuted by emphasizing not only the inseparability of all the movements of existence but also the historicity of each of them. On the basis of such a reinterpretation, Patočka’s concept can provide a phenomenological framework not only for a non-Eurocentric analysis of human being in the world but also of the world crisis.
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Monographs by Martin Ritter
Papers by Martin Ritter
whether the sensible phenomenon of “expression”, and the considerations on the
corporeal character of our existence in general, do not force us to abandon the way of thinking in substantial categories or, to be more precise, to abandon the idea of substantial “being for itself” independent on the being in relations with others.
The study interprets two phenomenological approaches to the body and underlines their weak points. More attention is dedicated to Husserl’s explication of the body in Ideas II: particularly on the basis of his theory of “localization“ we try to show that Husserl underestimates the extensionality of the body. Merleau-Ponty’s concept in Phenomenology of Perception is then interpreted as such an approach to the body that reduces it to an impersonal skill of our (bodily) actions. Our conclusion is that phenomenology cannot conceive the body as a principle of appearing, the constitutive role of which it might articulate through an analysis of experience, but instead it should respect it as an “area“ of the un-apparent that manifests itself autonomously in experience.
Navigating Freedom in the Age of Climate Change and Artificial Intelligence".
How to cope with climate change in the world permeated by technologies without giving up human freedom? Coeckelbergh's book is extremely valuable due to its particular perspective: that of liberalism, which offers a possible way out of the crisis just and only if we overcome a too-narrow concept of freedom. Such a perspective is particularly relevant in the epoch so fond of emphasizing freedom without being able to give it a concrete and convincing meaning.