Description
The project addresses several interconnected issues and goals. The first is related to our ongoing research dedicated to the philosophical questions of intimacy, which we approach from phenomenological account. The sphere of intimacy and privacy nowadays faces challenges as it is permeated by impersonal relations, challenging public events and confronted with old and new technologies and alienating narratives. Hand in hand with these reflections goes the culture of intimacy and privacy which characteristically formed in the history of Central Europe which shares common heritage of post-totalitarian societies. On the one hand, in such situation these issues became subject of philosophical reflections as it is case, e.g, of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka or Slovak philosopher and dissident Marcel Strýko. Especially Patočka's influence is not limited to the circle of his close students who also reciprocally formed his understanding (e.g. J. Němec, P. Rezek) and former Czechoslovakia, but he held frequent correspondence with Polish philosophers R. Ingarden, I. Krońska and K. Michalski. On the other hand, philosophical considerations are related to various artists and people who find themselves in the margins, like, e. g. in the underground, and their activities and works testify for specific sense of intimacy and privacy. The project is aimed at highlighting this common regional heritage based on network of vivid mutual relations.
Since the intimate relations are not without connections to other, more public regions of human life, it is vital to understand the intertwinement between them and what functions they have in shaping human existence. The very porousness of intimacy makes it potentially subject to various forms of dangers coming from public claims, sphere of impersonal relations, established narratives and misconceptions, and rise of new, virtual technologies and reducing it to a mere social construct as it happens in social sciences. These dangers have common denominator in certain objectification of the intimate experience. Such objectification can be challenged by phenomenological emphasizing of the so-called first-person perspective and description of experience from within this approach. Phenomenological description therefore should enter into dialogue with other fields addressing the issues related to sphere of intimacy and privacy. In collaboration with our partners, who have experience with phenomenological research and are also well acquainted with the geohistorical contexts of our societies, we aim to organize events and workshops with experts from various fields of social sciences and humanities, and for general public as well, in order to form a platform for continuous enriching encounters.
The approach to intimacy in Central Europe was specific due to the experience of communist regimes and the geopolitical location between the West and the East. One of the aims of the project is to raise awareness on the philosophical reflections on intimacy and privacy specific for this region and on genealogy of this experience (see regional relevance of proposal below). While there are works which show how the historical events shaped regional philosophy/philosophies and how these philosophies in return contributed to shaping of the conditions for practical political and social change (see, e. g., M. Gubser's book The Far Reaches), the significance of intimacy is in the shadow of these events largely overlooked. The phenomenological account of intersubjectivity understands the intimate and the private sphere as the crucial, irreducible and grounding sphere of human existence and yet reveals their inherent fragility, for there is a porous, thin line between taking care of the other and the other as an object of calculating, pragmatic concern. Phenomenological analyses provide explication of inherent experience, which is latently presupposed and for this reason also overlooked in other social sciences and humanities. On the other hand, social sciences and humanities provide important empirical insights and data for further development of philosophical reflections.
The region of Central Europe — due to its geo-historical and geo-political situatedness — offers a unique experience, which on the one hand shaped the intimate and private sphere as well as the life within this sphere reciprocally co-shaped the public encounters. From philosophical perspective, intimate and private relations are the basic ground determining the human existence. Yet, the boundaries between the intimate and non-intimate are interconnected, thus allowing for being pervaded, co-formed and deformed by impersonal relations. In the conditions of post-totalitarian societies this led to various strategies of concealment not only within public, but also private and intimate relations. But the situation also led to search for new possibilities and realizations of self-expression (underground, new forms of art, university seminars in private spaces). While there were common denominators in Central European countries, each of them was confronting these tensions in specific atmosphere and yet, formed a shared experience through informal networking. These various strategies of concealment and and disclosure, formed on the background of tensions between intimate and impersonal, private and public, have become, so to say, a historical sediment we latently bear within ourselves and to decisive extent co-determines our various responses to contemporary global events and challenges. These events, however, at the same time might tend to refine and also re-shape, reform or deform the intimate relations in novel ways.
Main Organizer
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and Art of the Trnava University in Trnava (Slovakia)
Research Partners
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
