In the study I focus on short reflection of Masaryk‘s views in the works of Slovak artists. I refer to the fact that his realistic and humanistic conception of life influenced mainly Svätopluk Štúr, for whom Masaryk was one of the greatest personalities in our history. The strength of his legacy is reflected throughout all of the works of the Slovak philosopher. In the text I focus only on some of the analyses of S. Štúr, particularly linked with the structure of reality, morality, religion, and the vision of a democratic society.

The paper raises the question: Could Heidegger have successfully completed his Being and Time as he proclaimed in its first edition? In the author’s view, the fact that the second part of the book remained unwritten was an inevitable consequence of the turn: The question of Being in the second part of Being and Time remained unresolved, therefore Heidegger later focused on of the understanding of Being in Hegel, Leibniz, Heraclitus and Parmenides. The author argues, however, that even this important re-orientation could not lead to a successful accomplishment of Heidegger’s original intention, to conceive Being without being, what would have enabled him to pass on from the metaphysics of being to the metaphysics of Being.

The essay introduces the concept of “proleptic existence” which denotes a psycho­logical disposition determined by the anticipation (prolepsis) of the future. The first his­torical evidence for this type is found in the apocalyptic literature of the Greco-Roman period. As these texts clearly show, the proleptic expectation of a future transformation of the world results from a complete alienation from political reality. Consequently, proleptic existence becomes articulate in visionary accounts of a coming order, which predicts the reconciliation of individual consciousness and social order. The essay pre­sents examples from ancient apocalypticism, early Christianity, medieval monasticism, and modern art in order to show how proleptic existence becomes a formative feature of Western society.

The author of the article contemplates about the selected works of the Slovak philosophers. She focuses on the reflection of their prevailing interest in the domain of art, precisely in the domain of literature. She points out the interconnection of philosophy and art, philosophy and literature; and also discusses the role of a creator and that of a recipient of philosophical and literary texts. The author remarks on the prospective character of uncovering new dimensions for a dialogue between an author and a reader.

In the final speech before the vote on his guilt or innocence Plato´s Socrates reminds the judge that he has a family including a teenage son and two small boys. In this case he refers to the verse of Homer´s Odyssey to point out that he was not born „of an oak or a rock” (34d). The aim of the article is to analyze and interpret the meaning of that quote. The first part will focus on the comparison of Homer´s verse with its form in Plato’s Apology. In the second section I will examine what strategy Socrates followed when he made reference to that line. The final section will focus on the question why Plato´s Socrates quotes Homer despite his previous statement that poets do not have wisdom.

The main theme of this article is the dispute on the meaning (destruction) of the history of metaphysics on the background of a reflection of Parmenides’ philosophical message. The leitmotif of the problem relates to the meaning (of destruction) of history of metaphysics considered as Western ontology (Heidegger’s position); with the identification of Platonic (metaphysical) tradition considered as a false knowledge perceiving being existing in truth, which, in the light of the thesis about nonexistence of absolute truth and its explication, becomes a concrete effort of temporal and endless human being (Nietzsche’s position). Nietzsche and Heidegger show that the first moment we must think about is our (metaphysical) ability to ground theoretically the meaning of the universe. This ambition then grounds whole spiritual tradition. Nietzsche’s critique of Parmenides’ thought means most probably his critique of the development of his basic assumptions in Platonic version of metaphysics. This form of critique is acceptable for Heidegger, too. A disagreement develops only concerning the final meaning of the history of metaphysics – while Nietzsche sees them as a completion of the moral perspective of universe and as a problem of critique of metaphysically masked nihilistic dimension of morality, Heidegger sees the completion of history of metaphysics as essential forgetting (more precisely masking) of the question of Being, therefore as an ontological problem. What Heidegger refuses to bring to consequences are the nihilistic consequences of his ontology, uncovered and thematised through Nietzsche’s critique of morality, in which the forgotteness of Being is unmasked in its (finally) nihilistic dimension.

Turning (Kehre) in Heidegger’s thinking reaches not only his search of the question of Being (Seinsfrage) but also the change of the status of human being in relation to Being. This change can be displayed also through Heidegger’s interpretation of pre-Socratic philosophy. While during the period before turning human being as being-there (Dasein) is able to understand Being and he is connected to it, in the period after turning this relationship changes completely. For Heidegger Being after turning becomes Being with the character of non-temporality or pre-temporality and it has its own history. Knowledge of the truth of Being happens not to be a matter of human being but it depends on the fact whether Being hides or unhides.

The goal of this study is to analyse Rorty’s classification of Heidegger as an ironical theoretic. Rorty claims that the main task of philosophy is its critique of its tradition, whereas Heidegger is his inspiration in this role. But the problem is that Heidegger is not concerned with historical-philosophical interpretation of history of philosophy but only with philosophical one and that he conforms to his own philosophical interests. For an accountable research of our main problem it is necessary to know Rorty’s definition and demarcation of theoretical ironic who has doubts about function, directivity and privileged status of vocabularies and about the existence of final vocabulary, too. It is necessary to show an anthropological and moral-axiological dimension of Neopragmatic thinking, which is far away from Heidegger after the turn, as well as the problem of Socratic justice, which is far away from rortyan ironic too. The important characteristic of a theoretical ironic is his rejection of traditional metaphysics and his concentration on metaphysics in different sense, thus comprehend the metaphysical (theoretical) urge so much that one eliminates it. But this does not hold for Heidegger, either. Rorty’s challenge to philosophy as fulfilment of humanity is in absolute contradiction to Heidegger’s Letter about humanism, in which he reduces humanism to the history of Being and he does not care about the man or human dignity, but only about the thought of Being.