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Work #1006 · Late (the first major post-1989 reflection on the transition from dissidence to governance)

Summer Meditations

Václav Havel
1991 (Letní přemítání, composed during Havel's first eighteen months as Czechoslovak president after the November 1989 Velvet Revolution) · Czech
Essay collection · Twentieth-century Czech philosophical dissidence / post-Communist political philosophy

Reflections from a dissident now in the presidential office — on the moral-political transition from "living in truth" to actual democratic governance

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Summer Meditations (Late (the first major post-1989 reflection on the transition from dissidence to governance))
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Summer Meditations

The first eighteen months of Havel's presidency (Dec 1989 - mid-1991); the broader historical moment of the post-Communist European transition.

Space

Summer Meditations

Prague Castle as the immediate political space; Czechoslovakia (soon to be Czech Republic and Slovakia) as the political space; the broader European space the integration project addresses.

Matter

Summer Meditations

The institutional materiality of post-Communist Czechoslovakia — the economy, the political institutions, the cultural infrastructure inherited from the previous system.

Observer

Summer Meditations

Havel as dissident-turned-president, observing his own situation with the same descriptive seriousness he had brought to dissident life.

Energy

Summer Meditations

The political-cultural energies of the transition; the residual energies of the Communist system that the transition must address.

Information

Summer Meditations

The seven essays as discrete topical reflections; the cumulative philosophical-political portrait of the transition's structure.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Summer Meditations

Summer Meditations' political proposals were tested by the subsequent course of post-Communist Czech and Slovak political development; the 1993 split of Czechoslovakia, the economic transition's difficulties, the eventual EU accession (2004) all bore on the book's arguments. Havel's mature presidential record (1989-2003 as president of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic) substantially carried out the programme the book had sketched.