Jan Patočka (1907-1977) was the leading Czech philosopher of the twentieth century. He studied phenomenology with Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. His brief teaching career at Charles University in Prague was repeatedly terminated by the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Before his death, he became one of the spokesmen of the Charter 77 dissident movement. Eric Manton works at the Jan Patočka Archive at the Center for Theoretical Study in Prague.

• Editor’s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Platonismand Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Some Comments Concerning the Extramundane and Mundane Position of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Reflection onDefeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Life in Balance, Life in Amplitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Ideology and Life in the Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Spiritual Person and the Intellectual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Political Philosophy of a Non-Political Philosopher by Eric Manton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Recommended Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Bibliographical Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

"Living in Problematicity shows how [Patočka] analyzed historical events philosophically, from the interwar crisis of democracy to the normalization that followed the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968."