The paper gives a short panorama of the tradition and philosophical history of the idea of Europe. It presents different phases of the discussion about Europe - discussion that usually emerged in the periods of radical social-political re-arrangements, crisis or insecurity of the European values - from Greek culture, through Bayle's Republique des Lettres or Kant's and Hegel's writings, to Postmodern philosophers such as Gadamer, Heidegger and Rorty who had to face the problems that occurred after the geographical, political unification of Europe in the 1990s.
The study raises the questions: What does the concept of Europe mean? Where was it born, and what are the perspectives for it? What are the characteristics of European culture? On what principles has the European Union been built? It argues that Europe and philosophy organically belong together, for Europe itself can be regarded as a philosophical idea.
