Abstract

Socrates as a philosopher is remarkably present in Patočka’s thought in all periods of his philosophical life. Patočka accepts the Socratic idea of knowing the unknown. He is developing this idea step by step throughout the various periods of his philosophical work. Socratic knowing of the unknown, transformed successively through the problematisation and the moment of negativity into the principle of historicity, means for Patočka the essential resort to his own concept of philosophy of history in its top form. With this concept, he attempts to advance a new, historical understanding of the sense of human life, and also of the sense of history. For Patočka, history is understood as constant problematisation; it is infinite, unresolved and opened — and it must remain so if we want to avoid the end of history.