Epoché as the Event when the Meaning of Life is Lost. Patočkas’ Phenomenology of the Historical Renewal of Meaningfulness

Karel Novotný

Epoché, as the fundamental act of phenomenology, plays an important role not only in Patočka’s phenomenological philosophy in the strict sense, but also in his philosophy of history. On the one hand, his later philosophy can be interpreted so that the question of the sense of the whole becomes integrated with Heidegger’s History of Being. However, an alternative to this reading is proposed by H. R. Sepp: epoché, as the shuddering unsettling of meaningfulness through sacrifice, has its meaning only in itself; it is an absolute experience, free of all sense, and it exceeds the horizon of sense.