The Bondage to Life, from Patočka to Chakrabarty

The purpose of this article is to question Patočka’s relationship between two types of chains for human existence: the vital chains (those of instinct, need, or pressure of individuation) and social chains (those of labour and exploitation). In turn, it is a matter of questioning the conception of the liberation that this relationship underlies. We will attempt to leave open the way to a non-metaphysical interpretation of liberation, no longer as a separation from life, but as a reversal of the direction of life, by resonating the analyses of Jan Patočka with those of Dipesh Chakrabarty, relying on two different figures of the third movement of existence in Patočka: that of sacrifice and that of ritual (which in itself also constitutes a type of sacrifice).