The Rupture and The Rapture: Eternity in Jan Patočka and Krzysztof Michalski

The author interprets Michalski’s philosophical account of eternity presented in his last book on Nietzsche – The Flame of Eternity. An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought. It is argued that in order to understand Michalski’s position one has to contextualize his philosophy, and refer to Heidegger’s and Patočka’s thought. The author tracks the way of how to understand the problem of eternity by reference to Ancient Greek philosophy, e.g., Anaximander. The thesis presented in the paper is that whereas for Patočka human temporality attains meaning through a movement of freedom in the rupture of eternity, for Michalski human temporality attains meaning through a movement of desire in the rapture of eternity.