Initial Reflections on Man in the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Reality That Is and Is Not the Same Reality

The paper discusses the problem of the specificity of experience of the life-world by man of the “COVID-19 era.” This experience should be considered in terms of the universal participation in times of the pandemic, the individual and collective experience of crisis and existential disintegration, as well as the consequences of the pandemic in the form of social restrictions and limitations related to counteracting this global threat. In this context, the contribution refers to the inspirations connected with the anecdote about the ship of Theseus, and selected elements of Jan Patočka’s phenomenology of the life-world. Therefore, the text attempts to prove the fundamental thesis that man of the “COVID-19 era” experiences reality that is and at the same time is no longer known to him. The life-world in the experience of man in the “COVID-19 era” is a world, in which many changes have taken place and are still taking place, which fundamentally changes the situation of man in the various dimensions of everyday life as well as the experiences of time, carnality, home, and work.