Jan Patocka (1907-77) was a Czech philosopher. He specialised in phenomenonology and the philosophy of history and his works include Plato and Europe, which was a collection of his lectures and Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History.Erin Plunkett is Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. She is currently researching the ontology and ethics of possibility in Kierkegaard and Jan Patocka. Her research interests are phenomenology, post-Kantian philosophy, Kierkegaard and existentialism, and the work of Stanley Cavell. Alex Zucker has translated Patocka’s writings. He is an award-winning translator of Czech, and also works in editing and communications. From 2014 to 2016, he was co-chair of the Translation Committee at PEN America. He has translated Czech literature since 1987 and as August 2018, he has been a member of the Cedilla & Co. literary translators’ collective.