Abstract
Epoché, as the fundamental act of phenomenology, plays an important role not only in Patočkas phenomenological philosophy in the strict sense, but also in hisphilosophy of history. On the one hand, his later philosophy can be interpreted so that the question of the sense of the whole becomes intergrated with Heideggers History of Being.
However, an alternative to this reading is proposed by H. R.
Sepp: epoché, as the shuddering unsettling of meanigfullness throught sacrifice, has its meaning only in itself; it is an ab-solute experience, free of all sense, and exceeds the horizon of sense.