Abstract

The article builds on the observation made by Josef Pieper, who writes about the critical attitude: “‘kritisch’ sein besage für den Philosophierenden so viel wie: sich darum bekümmern, daß nur ja nicht etwas ausgelassen wird.” Thus, the focus of the article is on the attempts to define philosophy through the prism of criticism, undertaken by some of the most significant philosophers of the first half of the 20th century, such as Leonard Nelson, Max Scheler, Karl Jaspers and Nicolai Hartmann.