Artykuły
“The souls are gone, the bodies remain”: the somatic dimension of human existence in the prose of Miloš Holas in the light of Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology
The article is an analysis of the somatic dimension of human existence in Miloš Holas’ novel Smutek z těla. The author argues that this forgotten novel greatly contributes to the destiny of naturalism in the Czech Republic. After presenting the plot and the main structural problems of the novel such as the construction of the portrayed world, the time-space dimension, narration, characterization, etc., the author moves on to analyze the elements of “corporeality.” She proves that the novel certainly realizes the ideas of naturalism ideological and compositional, and then compares these conclusions with the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler. At the end of her considerations she comes to the conclusion that in Holas’ novel the human being is portrayed as an animal organism, psychology is brought down to physiology, and the satisfaction of hunger and the sexual drive are considered to be the essential determinants of human existence in a world in which “the souls are gone, the bodies remain.”