An A-subjective Coexistence

In his article “An A-subjective Coexistence”, Gustav Strandberg seeks to elucidate the relation between Jan Patočka’s “a-subjective phenomenology” and his understanding of human coexistence. By taking Patočka’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology as a starting point, the author shows how Patočka’s displacement of phenomenology from the more traditional phenomenological analysis of the transcendental subject to an analysis of what he calls “the world as a whole” also entails an important proto-political shift in the analysis. The displacement of the position of the subject in favour of an analysis of the world concomitantly implies a shift from the individual subject to an analysis of human coexistence. The phenomenon of coexistence is thereafter analysed in relation to Patočka’s understanding of the worldliness of human existence. The article concludes with an analysis of how the question of coexistence is finally addressed by Patočka in his later works and in his attempt to reach an existential understanding of politics. What is thus revealed in Patočka’s analyses is a conception of coexistence that is riveted to his understanding of an a-subjective phenomenology and his concomitant analysis of the world.