EN
What significant role does the body play in Patočka’s phenomenology? This study identifies the main characteristics of Patočka’s conception of body over the course of the development of his thought. The body is the place in which the life of consciousness is (magically) joined with the world of ob¬jects, and at the same time it is the setting (but not the means) of appearing. The study demonstrates that the key problem of Patočka’s phenomenology of embodiment is the one of whether body can be reduced to a given fini¬tude, or whether it has the potential to go beyond the given, thus possessing its own kind of in finity. The appreciation of the body in the late Patočka assumes a methodological point of departure in motion. With the support of this point of departure, we may defend the thesis that the whole perfor¬mance of sense is bodily, although neither body nor consciousness can be identified with the final basis of appearing.