The book is a serie of essays on two major themes of the philosophy of Jan Patočka. The elucidation of the givenness of the world and of the originary modes of being of man in the world in the theme of the first part of the book which follows the critical transformations of the husserlian reflections in Patočka. The second part of the book concerns the historicity of man and the European History where Patočka is more open to a heideggerian inspiration. The natural world and history are so in a specific tension like the two foci of the ellipse as Paul Ricoeur noted. The moment of a dissidence and of a heresy is a caracteristic feature of the human freedom in Patočka. The freedom and transcendence of the spirit, despite of its radical distance to the given world, means for Patočka no "extramundain" position but rather a possibility of the engaged existence having impact on the practical life.