Jan Patočka (June 1, 1907, Turnov, Bohemia - March 13, 1977, Prague) is considered one of the most important contributors to Czech philosophical phenomenology, as well as one of the most influential central European philosophers of the 20th century. Having studied in Prague, Paris, Berlin and Freiburg, he was one of the last pupils of Edmund Husserl, who is considered the founder of phenomenology, and Martin Heidegger. During his studies in Freiburg he was also tutored by Eugen Fink, a relation which eventually turned into a lifelong philosophical friendship.
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His works mainly dealt with the problem of the original, given world (Lebenswelt), its structure and the human position in it. He tried to develop this basically Husserlian concept under the influence of some core Heideggerian themes (e.g. historicity, technicity, etc.) On the other hand, he also criticised Heideggerian philosophy for not dealing sufficiently with the basic structures of being-in-the-world, which are not truth-revealing activities (this led him to an appreciation of the work of Hannah Arendt). From this standpoint he formulated his own original theory of "three movements of human existence": 1) receiving, 2) reproduction, 3) transcendence. He also translated many of Hegel's and Schelling's works into Czech.
Apart from his writing on the problem of the Lebenswelt, he wrote interpretations of presocratic and classical Greek philosophy and several longer essays on the history of Greek ideas in the formation of our concept of Europe. He also entered into discussions about modern Czech philosophy, art, history and politics.
Patočka's Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History is analyzed at length and with much care in Jacques Derrida's important book The Gift of Death. Derrida was the most recent major philosopher who wrote or conversed with Patočka's thought; Paul Ricoeur and Roman Jakobson (who respectively wrote the preface and afterword to the French edition of the Heretical Essays...) are two further examples.
During the years 1939-1945, when the Czech universities were closed, as well as between 1951–1968 and from 1972 on, Patočka was banned from teaching. Only a few of his books were published and most of his work circulated only in the form of typescripts kept by students and disseminated mostly after his death. In 1977 he became one of the founders and main spokespersons for the Charter 77 (Charta 77) human rights movement in Czechoslovakia. Along with other banned intellectuals he gave lectures at the so called "Underground University", which was an informal institution that tried to offer a free, uncensored cultural education. In the days just before his death, he was subjected to long interogations by the Czechoslovak secret police, no doubt due to his involvement with the movement. He died at the age of 69 of apoplexy, after an 11 hour interrogation.
His brother František Patočka was a microbiologist.