21.01.2017: Ospite d´onore di Martin Kočí: The Un-thought of Christianity in Jan Patočka

In the course of a study day of the Department of Fundamental Theology in Melk Martin Kočí presented his research on the Czech philosopher, who  is considered one of the most important Central European thinkers of the 20th century and who has done significant reflexions on Europe and Modernity at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM - Institut für die Wissenschaft am Menschen).

The Czech Phenomenologist Jan Patočka, who can hardly be considered as a philosopher of religion or even a theologian, in his Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History strikingly remarks that “Christianity remains thus far the greatest, unsurpassed but also unthought-through” phenomenon. Focusing mainly on the enigmatic idea of the un-thought of Christianity, Patočka may help us to emancipate Christianity from both the form of mythical religion as well as modern rationalist and moral theology. In fact, the idea of the un-thought opens the possibility of developing the interpretation of Christianity that comes after (the end of) Christianity as something still arriving and unfolding its indeterminate future potential.

Martin Kočí studied and then worked as a research assistant at KU Leuven (Faculty of Theology, Research Group “Theology in a Postmodern Context”) from 2011 to 2016. In 2016, he was granted a Junior Patočka Fellowship at the IWM. Martin Kočí is a co-founder and the current co-ordinator of the Centre of Theology, Philosophy and Media Theory at Catholic Theological Faculty, Charles University in Prague (www.theo-centre.cz).