Umění, odpovědnost a polis

Art, Responsibility, and the Polis Is modern art part of the polis? Patočka sees in modern art a domain of human creativity, freedom, and plurality in opposition to the scientific-technological approach towards human existence, which reduces human beings to the single idea of utility. Where, according to Patočka, do all these characteristics of modern art originate? How is it different from classical art? By analysing his Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History (1975) and his essays on art from the 1960s, this article seeks to demonstrate that Patočka’s conception of modern art is connected with notions of responsibility and the polis, which appear in Patočka’s late philosophy. The article thus aims to demonstrate that the transition to modern art is based on a deeper change – namely, a transition from the private to the public in the sense of the polis. It also aims to show that Patočka’s conception of modern art is, in contrast to Plato’s, not the corruption of the soul but the area where one can care for the soul, and also to show that art has a rightful place in the polis.