The nature experience – what is it like and what does it mean to education?

Abstract

The article briefly analyses Jan Patočka’s original theory of “three movements of human existence”: 1) receiving, 2) reproduction, 3) transcendence – from the viewpoint of whole-life education. These theoretical considerations are confronted with demand for really authentic experience of/with nature in early stages of human development (often claimed by environmentalists). Human relationship with nature is being discussed in terms of existence in the original, “natural” world – with the perspective of its transcendental signification.