The study discusses Kant’s doctrine of lasting peace contained in his essay Toward Perpetual Peace (1795). First, the historical-political circumstances surrounding the genesis of Kant’s essay are described. Kant’s preliminary measures, which in his opinion must be accepted if lasting peace is to be ensured, are also discussed. Great attention is paid to the very core of Kant’s essay: his proposal for a comprehensive reform of law, which should apply to state, international, and cosmopolitan law. This is followed by an (...) exposition of Kant’s reflections on the feasibility of his doctrine of lasting peace in history. And finally, Kant’s view of the public as an institution is summarized. The originality of Kant’s approach is seen by the author above all in the fact that, from the point of view of the philosophy of law, the doctrine of lasting peace in Toward Perpetual Peace is connected with a consideration regarding its realizability in history. He also draws attention to the fact that though this detail is known, it is often marginalized in secondary literature. (shrink)

The author of this paper focuses on an interpretation of Kant’s conception of the history of metaphysics as being a history of pure reason. Kant develops this conception both in the Critique of Pure Reason and in a later work in response to a question commissioned by the Royal Academy of Sciences: What advances has metaphysics made in Germany since the time of Leibniz and Wolff? Key passages in these writings will be given analytical attention. It will thus be shown (...) that Kant’s purpose was not to eliminate metaphysics, but to correct it, and especially in his work On the Progress of Metaphysics, the philosopher from Königsberg points out the importance of skepticism within the history of metaphysics. (shrink)

The review of Kéž je všecko ku prospěchu obce! (May everything be to the benefit of the community!), published by Academia and OIKOYMENH, editor Petr Blažek, focuses on four themes: what do the documents say about Patočka, about the secret police, about the fate of Patočka’s textual estate, and about the post-November iinvestigation of the repressive measures taken against Patočka. This study draws attention, among other things, to Patočka’s intention to depart to West Germany in 1976, the influence of the (...) misidentification of the two Chvatíks on the successful progress of work on the publication of Patočka’s texts, Karel Kosík’s plan to revise the Heretical Essays and Two Studies on Masaryk, and above all the overlooking, by the editor of this volume (and the investigators from the 1990s), of the climax of the secret police repression against Patočka on March 2, 1977. (shrink)

In his practical philosophy, Kant reveals the principles of ethics that are based on pure reason and are therefore independent of both empirical anthropology and theology. Nevertheless, it can be argued that his reflections on the nature of morality are conditioned by the concept of humanity as it was shaped by Christian theology, especially in the Lutheran tradition. In this article, the author wants to show that this theological background is not only present in the work Religion within the Boundaries (...) of Mere Reason, which offers Kant’s rational interpretation of the basic Christian theologoumena, but that Kant also builds on it in the Critique of Practical Reason and in his practical philosophy in general. Consequently, neither the concept of radical evil, which represents Kant’s interpretation of the doctrine of original sin, nor the concept of a “revolution in the disposition of the human being,” which is an interpretation of the theological concept of grace, can be understood as a denial of the principles of Kant’s practical philosophy. On the contrary, by elaborating both concepts, Kant makes explicit the implicit theological background of these principles, which does not deprive them, nevertheless, of their philosophical persuasiveness. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to show that one of the essential motifs of Kant’s critical philosophy is the issue of human health. Its starting point is therefore Kant’s reflections in the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) and the Conflict of the Faculties (1798), where Kant presented his concept of so-called “universal medicine,” which focuses on the problem of a healthy regimen. Since its basic assumption is that the body and mind of a person, however different they might be, are (...) mutually connected so that the diseases of the body can be cured by way of the mind, it is the author’s interpretation that this concept is a peculiar attempt to overcome the substantive dualism of mind and body seen in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). At the same time, however, Kant follows on from what Descartes himself attempted. (shrink)

To what extent is Nietzsche’s critique of Kant empty rhetoric, and to what extent is it a substantive argument to be taken seriously? Within the broad Nietzschean- Kantian polemics, the study is concerned with the ethical domain. It starts from the title phrase “the Chinese of Königsberg” (“Das Königsberger Chinesenthum”) found in Nietzsche’s late book The Antichrist, and goes back to earlier forms of Kant-critique. At its core is the universalist, uniforming claim of the categorical imperative expressed by the motif (...) of duty, and its broader framework is a dualist notion of reality with the postulated noumenal sphere. The aim of the paper is not to offer a clear resolution to the dispute but to highlight its inspirational moments: these include the negative, refuting emphasis in the foundation of ethics and personal autonomy as the basis of self-respect and duty in both protagonists. The Kantian perspective can integrate Nietzsche’s “autonomy of the body” into the autonomy of pure practical reason. (shrink)

In his late magnum opus, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, Jürgen Habermas seeks to reconstruct what the “post-metaphysical” age lost when it abandoned metaphysics. Habermas sees a fundamental bifurcation of metaphysical thought in the eighteenth century, namely in the parting of the ways represented by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. In my paper, I will particularly focus on Habermas’s critique of Kant’s philosophy of religion. As a first step, I will present his critical conception of Kant’s practical philosophy in conjunction (...) with his philosophy of religion, which, according to Habermas, fails in its attempt to rescue religious contents within a secular philosophy. The crucial weakness that Habermas identifies in Kant’s systematics is the demands that arise from the absolute validity of the moral law. I will then, in a second step, critically discuss this interpretation of Habermas, attempting to point out the weaknesses of his interpretation. In contrast to Habermas’s attempt, however, I am convinced that the philosophy of religion is a constitutive and plausible part of Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

The article presented here thematizes Heidegger’s view of affectivity, experience and passions in the context of his reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Following the basic plan of Heidegger’s analysis of moods (especially fear and anxiety) in Being and Time, the author attempts to show us what Heidegger’s phenomenology of affectivity would have enabled us to see in the phenomenon of anger if Heidegger had elaborated it. The author analyzes anger as a social and moral emotion through the prism of what “angry” (...) phenomena have in common; what we perceive when we are angry; and what it is for us that anger is even about. In conclusion, anger is presented as something existential that not only uncovers existence itself, but above all the relationship of our will to phenomena that are not acceptable to us. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to the book Reframing Ethics through Dialectics: A New Understanding of the Moral Good by Michael Steinmann, who argues that the dialec tical inconsistency of moral theories, to which he refers to as “failure,” founds the ontological status of moral principles. Individual moral failure, on the other hand, is reduced to an epistemic error. Against the background of Lisa Tessman’s moral skepticism, Søren Kierkegaard’s moral existentialism, and Georg Simmel’s moral psy chologism, the author of this article (...) shows that by overlooking the significance of in dividual moral failure, Steinmann’s “metaethical failure” loses its dialectical meaning. (shrink)

In the context of the current discussion about the ethical boundaries of humor, the study attempts to show that an approach based on Mukařovský’s functional theory is not only applicable to the discussion but also competitive. In the first part of the article, the author tries to answer the question of inserting a joke into the field of functions. He understands a joke as a sign that has in its most typical version a dominant f ictive-communicative function. It is precisely (...) in the dominance of the fictive-communicative function of the joke that he sees the reason for the borderline position of the joke between art and life. The fictiveness of jokes creates, on the one hand, the impression that they have as fictitious statements greater independence from nonaesthetic norms, similar to what works of art have. On the other hand, because of the communicative moment jokes have more potential to offend us than do artifacts with a dominant aesthetic function. The second part of the study is dedicated to the relationship between the joke and the listener and attempts to describe other forms in which the semantic energy of the joke can reveal itself. (shrink)

T he writings of Frederick the Great, in addition to historical and military works, also contain philosophical works, poetry and letters. This article deals with the ethics of sexual passions to the extent they can be found in these philosophical and poetic works. First, the philosophical discussion on the ethics of sexual passions in Freder ick’s time is briefly described, after which the methodological principles of Avi Lif schitz are used to examine Frederick’s philosophical texts “A Moral Dialogue for the (...) Use of the Young Nobility”, “Letter on Education and Essay on Self Love Considered as a Principle of Morality”. Three of Frederick’s “Epistles” in verse and his play “The Tem ple of Love”, in which sexual passions are analyzed in more depth, are also explored. Frederick’s ethics of sexual passions are based on self-love (amour-propre), which pro tects the desirer from the seduction of a married woman, the lying of a single woman and the danger of a disease that can be caught from a prostitute. Marriage is deter mined to be the only space for satisfying sexual desires. However, the poetic work contains more: in it, Frederick notices the characteristics of passions that do not have to lead to marriage. It is above all about the different view of desires before and after gratification from the perspective of the desirer and other people. (shrink)

A unique feature of Hume’s epistemology is his concern for the philosopher’s state of mind in the process of doing philosophy. Philosophizing should bring agreeable feelings and avoid such contemplations that lead to distress. This is my main argument for proposing the affinity of Hume’s philosophy with the Pyrrhonian tradition. At the same time, however, Hume suspects that this goal is unattainable because a deep philosophical reflection necessarily leads to skeptical conclusions that give rise to depression. So how should a (...) philosopher bear this burden and “feel good” at the same time? For Hume, the conception of true philosophy remains contradictory, oscillating between an escape from philosophy to common life and the natural need to pursue profound reasoning. Hume later tries to remove these contradictions by proclaiming it necessary to blunt the edges of radical Pyrrhonism and move to the position of Academic skepticism. I have doubts about the success of his strategy. His proclaimed turn to academicism has no support in the ancient doctrines and, furthermore, Hume does not develop the theme of probable knowledge, which inspired the modern skeptics in their effort to provide rational foundations for the newly emerging sciences. (shrink)

T he study interprets Alain Badiou’s philosophy using Vincent Descombes’ Le même et l’autre (The Same and the Other). We believe that placing Badiou in the context of French philosophy of the 20th century can show him in a new light. Descombes’ book forms an interpretive framework from which the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and G. W. F. Hegel emerge. We perceive Badiou as an author who connects two phases of French philosophy (postulated by Descombes): the period of the three (...) H’s (Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger) and the period of (post)structuralism (Nietzsche, Freud, Marx). T he study will try to show connections, but also differences, between these concrete philosophies. The goal, in the meantime, is to shed light on Badiou, who can still be described as an (sufficiently) author who isn’t reflected, through the philosophy of authors who have already been reflected. We will move into the center of Badiou’s thinking through his inaesthetics. (shrink)

Josef Zumr was one of the leading representatives of modern Czech philosophical thought. His lifelong disposition was to be a realist of the Masaryk variety. He believed that a formative idea of humanity was the determinate element in the Czech tradition of thought. He found his unceasing conviction in the meaning and value of actuality in a conscious search for a supporting ideological cohesion in modern Czech thinking – in the urgent and convincing revelation of its original, rational sources and (...) emancipatory heights. He himself critically thought through this quintessential line of expression in Czech thought, doing so creatively and with the full responsibility of an engaged intellectual, and developing it conceptually and thematically. With his critical intellectual stance, the paramount goal of which Zumr considered to be the positive reshaping of existing social reality, he opened up possibilities of effectively strengthening democratic principles. One of these complementary democratic principles weighed most heavily on Josef Zumr in the final phase of his life: freedom of speech. He left us on July 2, 2024 at the age of 96. (shrink)

The study looks at environmental anxiety and hope from the perspective of existential philosophy, as two different forms of existential attunement. In the first part of the text, the current state of research in the field of environmental emotions and moods is sketched out. The concept of environmental anxiety is then briefly delineated, drawing on current taxonomies of environmental emotions as well as on philosophical definitions of anxiety promulgated by Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Tillich and contemporary existential phenomenologists. The existential relevance of (...) environmental anxiety is subsequently defined with the help of an analysis of the experience of the loss of meaningfulness that accompanies environmental anxiety, and then also an analysis of the change in how the natural world reveals itself to the anxious individual. The second part of the study focuses on the mood of hope. The hope for a solution to the ecological crisis is often presented in both public discussion and in the professional literature in the form of new technologies, political will or Providence. This hope is made immediately available and without making any great demands on the hopeful individual. However, by means of Kierkegaard the study shows that this kind of hope is a kind of illusion that leaves a person in a state of inaction, and even becomes an obstacle to a more radical form of hope, one that is capable of inspiring the individual to act, for example, toward “an active solution to the ecological crisis.”. (shrink)

The initial part of the paper deals with the situation of the knowing person in the context of the limits of knowledge. It focuses primarily on Pascal’s interpretation of the exhortation to know oneself, which will subsequently become the unifying motif of the entire text presented here. Although only Thoughts is discussed here, there presently follows a passage focusing on the broader context of this topic within the framework of the entirety of Pascal’s life and work. Following this part comes (...) the primary analysis of the paper, which is dedicated to the question of how Blaise Pascal takes perspective into account in the context of knowledge. The given problem is first introduced by an excursion into Pascal’s reflections on two types of thinking (l’esprit de géométrie and l’esprit de finesse) and the ways of knowledge. The primary part of the analysis is focused especially on Pascal’s “observing,” where observation is focused above all on fragments in which the French philosopher takes into account the inconstancy of the human in the partiality of the point-of-view, emphasizes the instability of knowledge and its methods, uses the metaphor of painterly perspective and reflects on the (im)possibility of having truth. At the same time, Pascal’s reflections are supported by the approaches of some later thinkers – Friedrich Nietzsche and José Ortega y Gasset. Taking into account the promising nature of knowledge, and coming to terms with it, is identified as an expression of Pascal’s intellectual unpretentiousness and humility. (shrink)

The paper invites us to revise the anthropocentric foundation of the philosophic distinction that is made between the concepts of human and animal. Following Derrida’s deconstruction, the author uncovers the systematic philosophic degradation of animals that helped to build modern humanism: human beings gave themselves the right to master non-human beings by comparing animal to man and defining it as an unequal, subordinated, and inferior being. The author suggests taking the concept of animal out of such an asymmetrically constructed binary (...) opposition. By revising “animal” idioms burdened by the anthropocentric prejudice of human sovereignty, the author calls for a biocentric ethical position of interspecies mutuality. Firstly, she questions metaphysical presuppositions that make the philosophic conception of symbiosis between human and nonhuman beings impossible. Secondly, she suggests a philosophic solution, which opens inventive ways for an ethical approach to animals, both by means of a focus on nonverbal communication and by offering new idioms related to biocentric images of animality. (shrink)

The opposition between the climactic thought of René Descartes and that of Blaise Pascal, although not very explicitly expressed at the time, is considered to be some kind of dispute between “reason and the heart.” An attempt at the relativization of these compartmentalizing poles brings the author of the study to a starting point that is common to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and Pascal’s Pensées (Thoughts): the act of skepticism and radical doubt. Despite the differences in their skeptical pathways (...) and their goals, the roots of the “systems” of thought of both philosophers grow from this act. The paper attempts to outline how the role of doubt can shape the problem of human knowledge, both on a general level and on the level of the highest, concrete knowledge of Divine Existence. (shrink)

Humanism is in a state of crisis, for which there are three principle reasons. The first results from theoretical criticisms from post-structuralism, feminism, postcolonialism and environmental thinking. The second flows from scientific and technological developments (biogenetics, evolutionary theory, robotics and artificial intelligence) and the third from scientific and technological capitalism. We are in a post-human time of transition that invites us to seek alternative conceptions of the human being. I introduce here an approach elaborated by Rosi Braidotti, which belongs to (...) neo-materialist posthumanism. I acquaint the reader with Claire Colebrook’s argument that posthumanism has preserved a bias about the value of life. It is necessary to overcome it and accept the perspective of extinction. I then show the conceptual problems and ideological contradictions of these theories and propose the development of a different alternative: hyperhumanism. (shrink)

The starting point of our thinking is not only the post-human questioning of the animal – the “animot” – opened by Jacques Derrida in L’Animal que donc je suis and the actualization of the problem of logocentrism, but also the theme of the thinking of the other, or rather the “infinitely other” who is looking at me. And this also in the sense of a certain Lacanian notion of the mirror. Therefore, we will also focus on the problem of the (...) gaze, the eye and the image in the sense of separation, as Michaela Fischer writes about it in Fragmentární vidění. Rancière, Derrida, Nancy (Fragmentary Vision. Rancière, Derrida, Nancy), and the making present of seeing, re-presentation and a certain archaeology and nostalgia from the point of view of Derrida in Mémoires d’aveugle. L’autoportrait et autres ruines. Our guides for this wandering about in the post-human world will be John D. Caputo’s The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, as well as Jacques Derrida’s cat and Michaela Fischer’s greyhound. (shrink)

The study focuses on the theoretical articulation of the points of departure and assumptions of the so-called posthumanist turn in fashion design. In the first phase, we address the connection between fashion and modernity, which leads us to inquire about what posthumanist clothing fashion might have to say about the nature of modernity. In the ensuing discussion about the anthropology of clothing and the thinking of corporeality, we will point to a transformed understanding of the relationship between culture and nature, (...) which questions the premises of classical, “humanistic” modernity. According to this concept, nature does not stand in opposition to culture and politics, it is not the past of the human race from which it should be emancipated. Nature as a utopia or a means of liberating humankind is placed in the same position as technology has been occupying. In the fourth, and final, section, we present an annotated sample of contemporary fashion theory, practice and creation in the narrow sense of the word. The productions of Iris van Herpen, Hussein Chalayan and Gareth Pugh vividly illustrate the posthumanist strategies in which human existence finds its realization in a close connection with the elements, technology and organic nature. (shrink)

Undoubtedly, Heidegger’s concept of the history of being belongs among the most inspiring, but also the most problematic, themes of his entire intellectual work. At its analysis in the professional literature there often emerges the impression that, in the framework of his philosophy, Heidegger “overlooked” most thinkers in favor of his obvious “favorites.” The text presented here belongs to a series of thought experiments that attempt, together with Heidegger and an imaginary “on behalf of him,” to figure out how this (...) or that supposedly “neglected” thinker would have figured in his conception of the history of being. Viewed from the point of view of time, it might seem at first glance that Pascal belongs to the epoch of the history of being, which Heidegger authorially associates primarily with René Descartes, labeling it with the term “perceptio.” However, upon closer and more careful reflection (Besinnung in German, a term by which Heidegger himself refers to his thinking “method”), it becomes clear that Pascal belongs – like Hobbes and Spinoza – more to the epoch referred to as “actualitas,” which is authorially associated primarily with Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In a state of existential anguish, Blaise Pascal asked himself a fundamental question: “What is man in infinity?” He tried to answer this question in his unfinished reflections, collected in Thoughts. The conspicuous existential features of Pascal’s anthropology, as well as the deeply personal and passionately religious character of his thought, call for a comparison with the two centuries younger, polemical Danish religious thinker and “founding father” of existential philosophy, Søren Kierkegaard. In my article, I will try to explain the (...) affinity of these thinkers to each other and point out several parallels in their ideas, focusing especially on those fundamental moments in which this affinity is particularly reflected and which, at the same time, underline the existential dimension of their anthropology: the paradox of existence, the concept of distraction as a phenomenon of existential escapism, and the existential situation of choice/wager. Although this article is primarily aimed at revealing the common intersections between the two thinkers, I will conclude it by also highlighting the point where their thinking diverges most markedly: their different understanding of the relationship between faith and reason, where, in the direction of fideism, Kierkegaard shows himself to be a far more radical thinker than Pascal. (shrink)

Posthumanism is presented in this text as a problem and analyzed from a conceptual level, which includes other related concepts such as anthropocentrism, humanism and the Anthropocene, and especially at the level of prefixes, i.e. the expressions posthumanism, transhumanism, dehumanization, inhumanity and inhuman, pre-human or subhuman. The problem of posthumanism is understood here in the context of the interregnum as a time of transition, multiple crises and the transformation of the human into the inhuman. The problem of posthumanism is grasped (...) as a problem of philosophical anthropology related to the question of humankind’s place in the cosmos, as an ontological problem associated with the relationship between identity and hybridity, and as an ethical-political problem associated with the question of human technological domination and control. Posthumanism is seen as an opportunity to formulate a picture of transversal thinking. (shrink)

The paradox of the Anthropocene is that humankind has become the planetary superpower, and yet faces an unprecedented ecological crisis as well as other forces that it is not capable of controlling. The solution is not to be found in putting faith in technological innovations that do not yet exist, but in a completely new attitude of humanity towards itself and all non-human beings and entities: posthumanism. Nature in fact speaks with more voices than only human ones, and humans have (...) always and are still able to listen to these other voices. However, according to ecophenomenologist David Abram, this listening is becoming increasingly difficult, for these voices are being drowned out by the purely human logic of abstract thought and scientific-technical society. The article focuses on the meaning of Abram’s ideas from the point of view of posthumanism and ecophenomenology as such. By means of this, it tries to demonstrate in what lies the import of phenomenology when it is applied to one of the greatest challenges of our time and why it should go still further in this regard than did Abram. (shrink)

The primary aim of the article is to present posthumanism as an approach needed in the era of the Anthropocene. By posthumanism, I mean a way of thinking that overcomes the weaknesses of humanism and emphasizes the essential interconnectedness of human beings with their environment. With regard to this “ecological” dimension of posthumanism, I will focus on the relationship between humans and technology, drawing on Bernard Stiegler. Stiegler’s reflections show that in the era of the Anthropocene human beings have become (...) an irrational force that pulls the rest of the living beings into a spiral of destruction through the technological system they have established in the shared terrestrial environment. This environment is an organ of the planetarily influential and at the same time planetarily dependent humanity, which must therefore assume responsibility for the Earth. (shrink)

In the article, I analyze the representation of Blaise Pascal’s thinking that was presented by the German philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini. This author explored Pascal’s philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s when Germany experienced a large wave of interest in Kierkegaard’s thinking, known as the “Kierkegaard Renaissance.” Guardini participated actively in this renaissance but was strongly opposed to using Kierkegaard’s philosophy as an interpretative key for reading Pascal. He was concerned that the fashionable philosophy of Kierkegaard would overshadow Pascal’s (...) intellectual originality. I will try to demonstrate that Guardini did not entirely succeed in resisting the temptation of following popular trends and himself used Kierkegaardian concepts and topics when discussing Pascal’s thought. Thus we encounter in his works a specific image of Pascal that reflects in great measure contemporary intellectual tendencies. (shrink)

Rosi Braidotti is one of the most distinctive thinkers of contemporary posthumanism. She approaches this term in an informed manner, at the same time endeavoring to redefine it and make it applicable to contemporary society, primarily through a critique of global capitalism. In the text, I will present this Italian philosopher’s concept of posthumanism, specifically focusing on an analysis of the construction of “posthuman knowledge” and the new methods of knowledge proposed by her.

The text presented here is dedicated to the specific features of Pascal’s thought that Nietzsche pursued in his middle period – especially in the works Human, All Too Human and Dawn of Day. The key question that the author tries to answer is: How does Pascal’s tragic view of the world relate to the negative conception of freedom of Nietzsche’s “free spirits”? In his analysis, the author focuses primarily on the opposition between the concepts of the herd and the contemplative (...) life, as well as on the motifs of distraction, boredom, and despair. Last but not least, the article analyzes Nietzsche’s concept of the strong and predisposed temperament, which he applies specifically to Pascal, Montaigne, and Nietzsche himself. In the conclusion of the study, the author attempts to prove the connection between the process of liberation and healing in all three of the above-mentioned authors. (shrink)

The essay focuses on the survival of Pascal’s metaphors concerning the cosmic wasteland. It analyzes step-by-step the ways in which authors such as Immanuel Kant, George Milbrey Gould, Herbert George Wells, Thomas Henry Huxley, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Vladimír Hoppe, Jacques Monod, and Eugene Thacker appropriated Pascal’s images of despair from the “eternal silence of infinite spaces”, which they have then used to develop their own arguments in favor of defending (or disparaging) the relevance of a human presence in the universe. (...) The focus of the study lies in an analysis of these connections in the work of the Czech philosopher Vladimír Hoppe. (shrink)