Učník (2016:C4) – ente situacional

[Patočka] está interessado no que significa ser humano. Ele rejeita a leitura de Heidegger da história do Ser. Como Patočka salienta, Heidegger oblitera, na história do Ser (Seinsgeschichte), qualquer consideração de humanos situacional e historicamente responsáveis por sua atuação no mundo. Assim, Patočka radicaliza a estrutura de existência de Heidegger. Afirma que não podemos planejar ou organizar as possibilidades que se abrem para nós, porque essas possibilidades não estão objetivamente à nossa frente, como se fôssemos observadores desinteressados. No entanto, não é o Ser que revela ou oculta a nossa situação humana. Embora não tenhamos liberdade de escolha — liberum arbitrium indifferentiae — para selecionar entre as diferentes possibilidades que nos são apresentadas numa determinada situação, somos livres na nossa relação com as possibilidades porque somos as nossas possibilidades. A liberdade não é algo que temos; a liberdade é o que nos define como humanos. Agimos ou não, tendo em conta as possibilidades específicas de uma dada situação. As possibilidades abrem ou fecham outras possibilidades para nós de acordo com a situação em que nos encontramos; de acordo com as coisas que nos rodeiam e demarcam um possível curso de ação que podemos aproveitar ou ignorar. Como diz Patočka: "Uma situação é algo onde tenho de estar para a compreender (não acima ou à frente dela)." Não posso estar fora de uma situação como se não fizesse parte dela; não posso avaliá-la independentemente da minha própria atuação. Estar numa situação significa também que nunca poderei compreender completamente a situação, porque não sou um espectador da minha própria vida. "Só posso sempre compreendê-la parcialmente".

[Patočka] is interested in what it means to be human. He rejects Heidegger’s reading of the history of Being. As Patočka points out, Heidegger obliterates, in the history of Being (Seinsgeschichte), any consideration of situational and historical humans responsible for their acting in the world. So Patočka radicalizes Heidegger’s structure of existence. He affirms that we cannot plan or organize the possibilities open to us because those possibilities are not objectively in front of us as if we were disinterested observers. Yet it is not Being that reveals or conceals our human situation. Although we do not have freedom of choice—liberum arbitrium indifferentiae—to select from different possibilities presented to us in a particular situation, we are free in our relation to possibilities because we are our possibilities. Freedom is not something we have; freedom is what defines us as human. We act or not, given the particular possibilities of a given situation. Possibilities open up or close off other possibilities for us according to the situation we are in; according to the things that surround us and demarcate a possible course of action that we can seize or overlook. As Patočka puts it: “A situation is something where I must be in order to understand it (not above or in front of it).” I cannot stand outside of a situation as if I am not a part of it; I cannot evaluate it irrespective of my own acting. To be in a situation means also that I can never understand the situation completely because I am not a spectator of my own life. “I can always only understand it partially.”

Situation is not something external. It is not a container in which we find ourselves. It is not a mechanism that holds us through a system of springs, allowing us to react only to the elasticity of the springs. We relate to our situation freely. We bear it and we can attempt to change it. If we find ourselves on a ship that is sinking, our situation is not an ocean, or the bad condition of the ship. We are in this situation because we happened to set off on a journey. If there were no one on the ship, it might indeed sink, but it would not be a human situation as Patočka understands it. Humans can change the situation they are in. And even if they cannot, the meaning of a situation becomes different once we face up to it. By reflecting on it, it becomes a different situation, because it becomes clear where we are and what we can or cannot potentially do.

Humans always actively relate to their situation, form it, and create it through acting. They do not re-act but actively act. Even doing nothing is a way of acting. This is tied to a human ontological structure. We are free: we can act or not act in relation to a situation because we are free in respect to that situation. Of course, this does not mean that we are unaffected by the situation or that we can simply eradicate it by thought alone. To paraphrase Patočka, our real test is not how well we play the role we have imagined for ourselves, but how well we play the hand we have been dealt in the situation we are experiencing. No human situation is closed off. We can mentally distance ourselves from what is immediate and reflect on a situation. A situation creates problems for us by presenting only certain possible actions that we can undertake; it calls upon us to take a stand and act. To be able to consider a situation, we must be free.

Patočka’s notion of freedom is not about our empirical freedom to do something in the world of our living, although this type of freedom is underwritten by our ontological potentiality. In this sense, the idea of freedom precedes our particular existence. Freedom is the condition of our ability to act in the world; it is what makes us human. Simply put, to be a human is to be free. We are free because we can always turn away from what is immediately present and reflect on memories of a different situation or fantasize in order to consider what we are up against. Being able to reflect, to distance ourselves from the immediate situation, will lead us to act in a certain way that is brought about not only by the situation we are in, but also by our reflection. Yet it is not the case that we stop, pause, think, reflect, decide on the best possible action, and then act. Our acting is informed by our unthematized reflection; most of the time, we do not even realize that our acting is not an automated response to a stimulus but a considered action. We simply act. Human existence is this actualization or running away from situational possibilities.

For Patočka, to be situational does not mean to be in some place that we simply pass through, nor that we are in space as objective things are; we are not partes extra partes. We are not indifferent to things and others that we encounter. We are situational beings. Humans cannot be in any other way; we are always in different situations because this is what it means to be human: “The fundamental human situation [prasituace] is to be always in some situation.” To be in a situation always creates a problem because we come face-to-face with something that needs to be resolved, that we need to confront, that requires us to act one way or another.

Scientists must distance themselves from a situation, from a subjective standpoint, in order to formulate results that can be understood by others in an objective manner. The only subjective instance in this case is that even their thinking is human thinking—it is humans who “analyse, judge, reconstruct”—but they must abstract from the particular situation to pronounce a formal judgment that is relevant for other similar occurrences. However, this modern trend of distancing oneself from the situation has a dark side, too. Science can pronounce its judgment on the abstracted situation only. Once we look more closely at the warning signs that this way of thinking presents for our human existence, we realize that modern science aims at the “rational mastering of reality,” mastering all natural energy without taking into account human existence. To reflect on the present situation means that we must also engage with the history of ideas, to compare our situation with other situations and try to understand the journey that led us to the present.