A Ship Bound to Shipwreck. Jan Patočka's Philosophy of History

In the last decade or so of his life, Jan Patočka devoted a significant number of texts to developing a philosophy of history. In recent years, this aspect of his work has attracted ever-increasing attention and admiration. At the same time, however, there has been a lack of any thoroughgoing critical assessment of this philosophy of history, especially with regard to its methodology and its connection to the other aspects of his philosophy. The aims of this thesis are thus as follows: firstly, to illuminate the philosophical foundation of Patočka’s late philosophy of history by linking it to his asubjective phenomenology and his philosophy of movement; secondly, to critically assess Patočka’s late philosophy of history; thirdly, to find out whether Patočka’s late philosophy of history has something to say to us today.