Julia Sushytska

Truth exists, even if there is epistemological confusion—whether “natural” or intentional—about truth. This is a principle on which many East Central and Southeastern European philosophers have insisted. Jan Patočka elaborated the concept of “living in truth,” and Václav Havel developed it into a praxis. Merab Mamardashvili maintained that the search for truth makes one human. This project looks at some of the key concepts of five philosophers from Eastern and Central Europe—Jan Patočka, Václav Havel, Ágnes Heller, Merab Mamardashvili, and Myroslav Popovych—to reveal the ways in which all are deeply concerned with the question of truth, and how their concepts provide us with tools to resist the current “postmodern” strain of propaganda that promotes the idea that there is no truth.