Daniel Brennan

The significance of World War 1 in Jan Patočka’s Philosophy

Introduction: European thought, after the Deluge; Rory Jeffs and Matthew Sharpe -- Part I: Singin’ in the Shade? -- 1. Singin’ in the Shade: An Introduction to Post-Post-War Thought; William H. F. Altman -- 2. Nationality, State and Global Constitutionalism in Hermann Cohen’s Wartime Writings; Miguel Vatter -- Part II: Weimar and its shadows -- 3. The Sons destined to Murder their Father: Crisis in Interwar Germany; Petra Brown -- 4. The Spengler Connection: Total Critiques of Reason and The Decline of the West; Julian Potter -- 5. The Significance of World War One in Jan Patocka’s Philosophy; Daniel Brennan -- Part III: Intellectual movements -- 6. A New Vision of How the Great War Influenced Freud’s Psychoanalysis; Talia Morag -- 7. The Long Shadow of Leninist Politics: Radical Strategy and Revolutionary Warfare after a Century; Geoff Boucher -- 8. Hegel in Dark Times: The Resurrections of Geist from the Ashes of War; Rory Jeffs -- 9. The Spectre of Collectivism: Neoliberalism, the Wars, and Historical Revisionism; Damien Cahill -- Part IV: Academic philosophy in a time of wars -- 10. The divide between philosophy and enthusiasm: The Effect of the World Wars on Relations between British and Continental Philosophies; Sherah Bloor -- 11. Philosophy and/or politics? Two trajectories of philosophy after the Great War and their contamination; Jack Reynolds -- Part V: After the wars have ended? -- 12. Modernity, civilisation, culture and the ‘War to end all Wars’: Or we begin and end in the mess; John Rundell -- 13. 1750, casualty of 1914? Lest we forget (The preKantian enlightenment); Matthew Sharpe -- List of Contributors. .

The Political Thought of Václav Havel

This book explores the influences on the thought of Vaclav Havel and how Havel develops a unique political philosophy from these. This is informed from the phenomenological tradition. The book situates this philosophy among current debates in liberalism and agonism.

Vaclav Havel's Levinas: Timely remarks on humanism

Abstract The paper explores Václav Havel’s encounter with Emmanuel Levinas’ essay ‘Without Identity’, which Havel read while in prison. The discussion of this encounter will demonstrate the importance of this encounter for solidifying the humanist elements of Havel’s thought, whilst also demonstrating the pre-existing humanism in Havel, evidence itself of his large debt to Czechoslovak humanist thought. What emerges is a demonstration of the richness and timeliness of Havel’s writing on responsibility. The paper makes a case for rejecting popular Heideggerian interpretations of Havel’s oeuvre. Havel’s deep affinity for Levinas’ thinking demonstrates that Havel’s humanism, informed as it is from the Czech tradition as well as through his encounter with Levinas, is at odds with Heidegger’s essential anti-humanism.