Czech history defies dominant Western progressive historical narratives and moral evolutionism. Czech free-market democracy was defeated and betrayed three times in 1938, 1948, and 1968. The Czech Protestants were defeated in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consequently, Czechs have a different perspective on the traditional questions of speculative philosophy of history: Where are we coming from? Where are we going? What does it mean? They ask further: where and why did history go wrong?Jan Patocka (...) , the leading Czech philosopher and the author of Charter 77 of human rights, traced the repeated historical tragedies of the Czechs to the origins of their national movement in the imperial liberation of the serfs in the eighteenth century, debating the dominant nationalistic belief in national historical continuity, leading to linguistic nationalism. Patocka accused his nation of being "petty," of low social origins and interests, unlike their elitist neighbors. Despite his obsession with aristocracies bent on any transcendence, Patocka thought that the Czechs should have fought the Nazis in 1938 for the transcendental ideal of democracy. Linguistic nationalism led the Czechs and their leaders to choose life in slavery in their Hegelian conflict with the German masters.The Czech reception of Patocka's philosophy of Czech history has been mixed. I criticize the philosophical, political, and historical shortcomings of Patocka's discussion. Contemporary Czech attitudes to their history are forgetfulness; new Czech historicism tracing a continuity from Jan Hus to Václav Havel; and a search for historical truth and philosphical understanding of history that has political implications. (shrink)

Hermann's Weyl Das Kontinuum has inspired several studies in logic and foundations of mathematics over the last century. The book provides a remarkable reconstruction of a large portion of classical mathematics on a predicative basis. However, diverging interpretations of the predicative system formulated by Weyl have been proposed in the literature. In the present work, I analyze an early formalization of Weyl's ideas proposed by [Casari, E. 1964. Questioni di Filosofia Della Matematica, Milano: Feltrinelli] and compare it with other, more (...) well-known, accounts, such as those proposed respectively by Feferman and Avron. In this way, I fill a gap in the literature on Weyl's predicative mathematics by shedding light on an interpretation that has never been studied. Moreover, Casari's work is plausibly the first systematic reconstruction of Weyl's system. In particular, I highlight the different insights about predicativity that can be found in Weyl's work. Casari's reconstruction focuses on the logical and mathematical processes described by Weyl in the first part of his book. Through the analysis of this unexplored perspective, I shed light on fundamental aspects of Weyl's work and elucidate the alleged ambiguities it presents. In particular, in line with Avron's most recent reconstruction of Weyl's ideas, this analysis supports a stronger conception of predicativity than what is commonly attributed to Weyl in the literature. As a result, this work not only provides an analysis of a neglected interpretation of Das Kontinuum, but also contributes to elucidating Weyl's classical conception of predicativity. (shrink)

The present paper focuses on the development of Czech philosophical thought during the period of the First Republic. It is a time of remarkable diversity in this important part of spiritual culture. Many modern philosophical trends also developed during this time. Here we also encounter a change in the institutional security of theoretical and educational work (the creation of new universities, the publication of journals and monographs, and the organization of a world philosophical congress). This development had a discursive (...) character. The question of the social involvement of philosophy in new political conditions was raised. This concerns one aspect of the discourse on the role of theoretical thought (philosophy, ethics, science) in the development of a program of real humanity within the framework of a democratic society. The so-called “struggle for the freedom of Czech philosophy” represented an intergenerational conflict, reflecting the broader issue of interpreting Czech history and its meaning. This article thus attempts to provide a brief perspective on intellectual diversity as the outcome of this discourse. It illustrates, through a specific historical period, the view that, in Czech philosophy and ethics, many thinkers and ideas can be found which are so original that they may serve as a remarkable source of inspiration even for the present day. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate Patočka’s impact on contemporary Czech philosophy. As a preliminary, it presents Patočka’s general conception of the possible impact of philosophy as such. It seems that for Patočka, the clarifying function of philosophy was the most relevant, much more than its possible capacity to stimulate objective or social processes. It then explains what impact Patočka himself expected from his own activity as a philosopher. Here we can see that his main concern was to pass on (...) the great philosophical tradition neglected by Czech intellectuals, primarily ancient philosophy and German Idealism. Finally, it sketches the impact of Patočka’s writings and lectures that can actually be seen today in Czech philosophy—in the study of ancient and Classical German Philosophy, in new philosophical conceptions inspired by him, in phenomenology, and in debates about modern Czech history. (shrink)

Among the national scientific groups, it was the Prague Linguistic Circle that had the most decisive affinity to the work of the Moscow-Tartu school. This paper examines the work of one of the most tireless contemporary Czech interpreters of the Lutman school, Vladimir Macura (1945-1999), whose work on Czech literary and historical texts are outstanding examples of the reverberation of Lotmanian semiotics of culture in the Czech Republic. This is particularly the case in Macura's reevaluations of the (...) texts of the Czech National Revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in two books, Znamení zrodu (Signs of Birth) (1995) and Český sen (The Czech Dream) (1998). In these works Macura looked at this critical period in Czech national history as a multi-layered semiotic text in both the verbal and visual spheres. The present paper is an attempt at an exploration of Macura's treatment in this manner of the following: the Czech language, the city of Prague, the question of Czech national self-identification in general and as part of a larger category, the world of the Slavs. An important aspect of this project is an examination of Macura's exploration of the value functions of symbolic animals and plants in Czech Revival culture, and its relation to the axiology of Czech (Slavic) cultural identity. The paper is dedicated to Macura's memory. (shrink)

Pojem filosofie nabyl v průběhu historie řadu podob a významů. Kromě tradičního teoretického zaměření se lze setkat s přístupem, který vyzdvihuje praktický dopad filosofování na život člověka. Příspěvek představuje koncept filosofické praxe a reflektuje její současný stav na území České republiky. Autoři vymezují filosofickou praxi jako disciplínu filosofie, a načrtávají její možné dělení na dílčí oblasti. Nastíněny jsou její historické kořeny, které autoři identifikují v antickém Řecku. Dále se věnují systematickému představení doposud sepsaných materiálů k filosofické praxi a přehledu její (...) realizace na území České republiky. Detailní pozornost věnují autoři popisu tří jejích oblastí, mezi které patří filosofie pro děti, filosofický workshop a filosofická konzultace. Kromě teoretického vymezení reflektují rovněž své vlastní postupy v uvedených oblastech. Článek čerpá především ze zahraniční odborné literatury, konkrétně z textů a dalších materiálů filosofických praktikantů. Jeho cílem je představit českému čtenáři doposud podrobněji neřešený koncept filosofické praxe a připravit tak pole pro možnou debatu na akademické rovině. -------- The concept of philosophy has had several forms and meanings throughout the history. Besides the traditional theoretical focus, we may also encounter the approach that highlights a practical impact of philosophizing on one’s life. This text introduces the concept of philosophical practice and reflects its current situation in the Czech Republic. Authors characterize philosophical practice as a discipline of philosophy and present its possible division into subsections. They also present its historical roots, which can be found in ancient Greece. Moreover, authors introduce available sources dealing with the philosophical practice and describe how this discipline is actually practiced in the Czech Republic. Detailed attention is given to three of its sections, namely philosophy for children (P4C), philosophical workshop, and philosophical consultation. Authors present theoretical background and also reflect their own methods in these sections. The text draws primarily from scholarly literature from abroad, particularly from the manuscripts and other sources produced by philosophical practitioners. The aim of this text is to introduce the concept of philosophical practice to the Czech reader and prepare the field for further academic discussion. (shrink)

So I present myself this morning not as an expert with wisdom to impart, but as a neophyte reflecting on his own practice with a view toward getting clearer on the vision of philosophical historiography that underlies it and thereby, perhaps, improving that practice. The paper will fall into two tenuously connected parts. The first part contains a general reflection on method that I wrote a few years back which has since been published in Czech but has not had (...) any circulation in the Anglophone world. I venture to repeat these observations here because I haven’t thought better of them in the meantime, though many of you, I feel sure, will think that I should have. The second part takes up a case study. Having just finished a book on Anselm, I wanted to talk about the current state of historiographical method in Anselm scholarship and see what lessons, if any, can be derived from what I’ve found in my journeys through the secondary literature. (shrink)

This report characterizes the state of affairs in the field of business ethics in Central and Eastern Europe. It reveals the major problems and challenges brought about by the profound reforms to these societies and economies. It also offers some results of surveys looking at public opinion on morals and ethics, as well as on current business practices. In order to give a complex picture, it presents brief lessons from the history of particular countries. The author, devoting the most (...) attention to the Czech Republic, tries to describe not only the development of business ethics in the theoretical arena but also the first steps taken by the business world itself. (shrink)

Buddhism, now a 2,500-year-old religion, very quickly became associated with the study of texts, of which it contained a considerable number. During the development of Buddhism on the territory of Czechoslovakia, since the days of Austria-Hungary, there have been attempts to find, translate, or write a fundamental book of Buddhism, which would help one to orient oneself in the vast and varied material of Buddhist texts. However, none of the books achieved this significance. In 1914–1915, 1917, and 1925, Dharma – (...) Buddhist Catechism by Henry S. Olcott was published in three different editions with an introduction by O. Pertold. The book was very popular then but did not reach world fame. The situation changed after 1935 when Nyanatiloka’s The Word of the Buddha was published in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. After the Velvet Revolution, it was published several times by Mirko Frýba (Áyakusala Thera) in his translations (1993 with commentary by Květoslav Minařík, 1998, 2006, 2010, and 2013, it is republished with a commentary by Květoslav Minařík with a modified translation from 1935). The book was used by František Drtikol (known as the Patriarch of Czech or Czechoslovak Buddhism) and his disciples and future Buddhists (like Frýba) from 1936 to the present. Thanks to frequent copying and distribution during and after the period of communist unfreedom, as well as its connection to the Czechoslovak Buddhist tradition, this book became, at least for the linguistic region of Bohemia (Czech Republic) and Slovakia, the “fundamental book of Buddhism.” One of the primary sources for this article was the oral tradition handed down by Czech masters. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, the body was seen as both an ontogenetic and a phylogenetic entity. In the former case, its individual development, it was manifestly changeable, developing from embryo to maturity and thence to a state of decay. But in the latter case, concerning its development as a species, the question was an open one. Was its phylogenetic nature a stationary snapshot of the slow process of evolution, or was this too mutable? Historians have emphasised that the question (...) of acquired inheritance remained open into the twentieth century; this paper explores how various constructions of the individual as a phylogenetic episode—a stage in the race’s evolution—related to representations of the body in the same period.A discussion of the work of the brothers Josef and Karel Čapek offers a contextualised answer to the question of bodily representation. Karel Čapek explored the nature of the ‘average man’ through two different organisms, the robot and the amphibian, epitomes respectively of corporeal permanence and plasticity. Josef Čapek , along with other members of the Group of Plastic Artists, explored visual representations of the body that challenged cubist Bergsonian norms. In so doing, he affirmed what his brother also held: that despite the constrictions imposed by the oppressive political conditions in which the Czechs found themselves, the individual body was a fragile but fluid entity, capable of effecting change upon the future evolution of humankind. (shrink)

The volume represents a selection of the articles which were presented at a colloquium on new research topics in aesthetics at the Austrian Library in Pilsen in September 2010. Their authors, Czech and Austrian scholars, address various topics, ranging from the institutional history of aesthetics to the relationship between philosophical aesthetics and psychology, and from the philosophy of literature to the aesthetics of fine arts, dramatic arts, and architecture.

Aesthetics, experiments and values -- Between cybernetics, aesthetics, and semiotics -- 'I/other' oppositions in music, aesthetics, and semiotics -- Interpersonal analysis in film music -- Janácek from an interpersonal viewpoint -- Postscript.

The ecological crisis affects every person and place on the planet. Environmental thinking reflects on the causes of this crisis, the diversity of its consequences, as well as its solutions and their perception by individuals in the past and present. The presentation of local contexts of perceptions and solutions to the crisis emerging from lesser-known traditions helps to complete a holistic picture of a human and to find answers to the question of how to act rightly. Even Czech environmental (...) thinking emerging from specific Central European traditions (J. Hus, J. A. Comenius, T. G. Masaryk, V. Havel) has the potential to enrich the image of a human and the perception of the morality of existing proposed solutions. In the following text, the author will present the prehistory of environmental thinking in Czech lands, the development of this thinking, and the most important authors of the last 30 years. The presented research results are based on historical and research methods, the most important monographs, and scientific articles in the field of philosophy, history of philosophy, ethics, and sociology. Topics covered include the introduction and problems of evolutionary ontology, the importance of philosophy and environmental philosophy in times of ecological crisis, the issues of communities of people of voluntary frugality, the socio-ecological approach, ecological rationality, etc. The article points to the dominance of ecocentric views on the ecological crisis in Czech thinking, as well as to the causes of the limits of environmental thinking in the Czech environment. (shrink)

The article deals with linguistic relativism in the decisions of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof and the Czech Constitutional Court. It focuses on the Courts argumentation in which the state of language and its limiting perception of the word gender about non-binary and intersex people were used. The article conducts an in-depth analysis of two judgments. The first is the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Case No. Pl. ÚS 2/20, in which the Court argued the absence (...) of gender-neutral names in Czech as one of the reasons for rejecting the constitutional complaint. The second is the judgment of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof Case No. G 77/2018-9, in which the Court concluded as part of the constitutional review that the language can be adapted to the societal situation. The paper analyses selected parts of both decisions, interpreted using fundamental theses of linguistic relativism (and determinism). I argue that the Czech Constitutional Court has adopted a conservative approach without considering the current societal situation. This opened space for the unequal status of people with an alternative gender identity in society based on ignoring inclusive language, which is the exact opposite of the position of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof. (shrink)

This thorough study offers a lucid analysis of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka's thought, from the influences on his phenomenology to the impact of his politics. The book provides a nuanced grounding for current and future Patočka scholars.

Philosophy in the historical Kingdom of Bohemia has never received much attention in the Anglophone world. Yet in the early modern period, Bohemia and especially Prague were an extraordinarily fertile ground for philosophical thought. Stanislav Sousedík of Charles University in Prague is now the foremost expert on this region and period. His Philosophy in the Bohemian Lands between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment appeared in Czech in 1997 and is now available in a nearly identical German translation.Within the (...) Holy Roman Empire, the Bohemian Lands formed a cultural unity that was also under independent rule until it came under the Habsburg crown in 1526. This study reveals the contribution of philosophy to the creation of this unity from the late Middle Ages until the end of Joseph II’s rule in 1790.The book starts with the Thomism , the Scotism , and the Lullism taught at the University of Prague after Jan Hus had imposed a strict ontological realism. Under independent Bohemian kings, political philosophy became relevant, and Renaissance Platonism was eventually received and flourished in coexistence with the inherited. (shrink)

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Marian Zdziechowski are well-known personalities from the Czech and Polish cultural environments, respectively. Their lives and work had many parallels, one of which was their interest in Russia and Russian thought. In their time, they were unique connoisseurs of Russian philosophy. This article tries to insightfully compare their attitudes regarding this field. It first analyzes their cooperation in this area, then the importance of Russian philosophy in their work, what contacts they had with Russian thinkers (...) and how they perceived major personalities in field of Russian thought, about whom they wrote their works. Due to their different philosophical and political orientations, they perceived a number of issues differently, and, rather than a relationship of parallelism, we can therefore speak of the mutual complementarity of their study of Russian thought. (shrink)

Critically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the book brings a new voice into contemporary philosophical discussions. It elucidates the development of Patočka’s phenomenology and offers a critical appropriation of his work by connecting it with non-phenomenological approaches. The first half of the book offers a succinct, and systematizing, overview of Patočka’s phenomenology throughout its development to help readers appreciate the motives behind and grounds for its transformations. The second half (...) systematically explicates, critically examines and creatively develops Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as the most promising part of his asubjective phenomenology. The book appeals to new readers of Patočka as well as his scholars, and to students and researchers of contemporary philosophy concerned with topics such as embodiment, personal identity, intersubjectivity, sociality, or historicity. By re-assessing Patočka’s philosophy of history and his civilizational analysis, it also helps to better articulate the question of the place of Europe in the post-European world. (shrink)

This article assesses to what extent the future of democratic liberty depends upon its citizens employing a proper approach to the past, by analyzing Tocqueville’s views of three kinds of historical consciousness—aristocratic, revolutionary, and democratic. It is argued that democracies require certain aristocratic assumptions about historical dynamics to cultivate a historical consciousness that fosters liberty. Key to this is the belief in the human capacity to influence the trajectory of history. Tocqueville’s historical approach, which blends aristocratic and democratic elements, (...) is identified as the most effective method for tempering the fatalistic tendencies of the democratic point of view. Thus, for democracies to maintain liberty, citizens should recognize the dual role of general causes and human agency in directing the course of historical events. Tocqueville’s insights on the effects of historical consciousness on the future of democratic liberty remain particularly relevant today when Western democracies confront internal polarization and external anti-democratic challenges, whether neoliberal, illiberal, populist, or fascist. (shrink)

The Czech philosopher Jan Patocka (1907-1977), who studied with Husserl and Heidegger, is widely recognized as the most influential thinker to come from postwar Eastern Europe. Refusing to join the Communist party after World War II, he was banned from academia and publication for the rest of his life, except for a brief time following the liberalizations of the Prague spring of 1968. Joining Vaclav Havel and Jiri Hajek as a spokesman for the Chart 77 human-rights declaration of 1977, (...) Patocka was harassed by authorities, arrested, and finally died of a heart attack during prolonged interrogation. Plato and Europe, arguably Patocka’s most important book, consists of a series of lectures delivered in the homes of friends after his last banishment from the academy just three years before his death. Here, he presents his most mature ideas about the history of Western philosophy, arguing that the idea of the care of the soul is fundamental to the philosophical tradition beginning with the Greeks. Explaining how the care of the soul is elaborated as the problem of how human beings may make their world one of truth and justice, Patocka develops this thesis through a treatment of Plato, Democritus, and Aristotle, showing how considerations about the soul are of central importance in their writings. He demonstrates in vivid fashion how this idea forms the spiritual heritage of Europe. (shrink)

Jan Patočka’s philosophical development was varied. Over the course of fifty years of philosophizing, he gradually, and to varying degrees, developed close to a dozen systematic projects, whose ambition was, at least initially, to present what he called a “unified philosophy.” However, the dynamism with which he changed his philosophical plans and incessantly embarked on new projects invites the question of how to approach the various and often mutually “contradictory” transformations of his philosophical thinking, if neither the continuity and integrity (...) of Patočka’s thought nor the essential specificity of any of these positions is to be lost. Through the notion of the “personal a priori” found in one of Jan Patočka’s early texts, and in a critical, “overcoming-preserving” reference to two antagonistic conceptions of Patočka’s philosophical development, the article attempts to sketch a solution to this general interpretative problem. In the context of the search for Patočka’s “basic position of seeing” as the integrating framework of his diverse philosophical attempts, it simultaneously reconstructs the early question about the meaning of philosophy in general, which Patočka developed in a series of texts from the 1930s, some of which are still available only in the Czech language. (shrink)

Although history is the pre-eminent part of the gallant sciences, philosophers advise against it from fear that it might completely destroy the kingdom of darkness—that is, scholastic philosophy—which previously has been wrongly held to be a necessary instrument of theology.

“It is certainly no accident that precisely here, in this region of continual threats to, and continual defence of one's own identity — whether personal, cultural or national identity — there is such a long tradition of the idea of truth, a truth for which one must pay, the truth as a moral value. One constantly runs up against this tradition, from Cyril and Methodius to Hus and Masaryk, Stefanik and Patocka”. This citation from a lecture entitled “Morality and Politics” (...) provides a brief sketch of the background to the thought of the current Czech president, Vaclav Havel.Though lacking any academic training in philosophy, Havel was strongly influenced by the ideas of the philosophy professor from Prague, and founder of Charta 77, Jan Patocka. Inspired by some of Patocka's last writings, in 1978 Havel wrote an essay on Charta 77 which was dedicated to Patocka. The title of this essay was taken from one of Patocka's central statements: Attempt to Live in the Truth. Patocka's influence is also clearly evident in `Letters to Olga', in his speeches as president and in his thinking on Europe.Havel's thought, via the thought of Patocka, must be situated within a dual tradition. On the one hand it is rooted in Czech history. Patocka had already in his early writings thematized the ideas of Thomas Masaryk. The work of Masaryk, who became the first president of the new Czech republic after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, is characterized by an awareness of the crisis of rationality, like in the later Husserl. On the other hand Havel's thought, again by way of Patocka, is rooted in a phenomenology that is primarily oriented toward Germany. Patocka is often regarded as the interpreter par excellence of the dialogue between Husserl and Heidegger.This article is based on a speech given by President Havel during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, in Geneva, March 16, 1998. (shrink)

Jan Patočka (1907-1977), Czech philosopher of world importance, wrote his habilitation script with Edmund Husserl in Freiburg, where he also became acquainted with the work of Martin Heidegger. In his own work, Patocka tried to resolve the philosophical conflict between their various concepts of phenomenology. The attempt to add a historical dimension to the notion of Lebenswelt and to the concept of phenomenon as such led him ultimately to formulate a phenomenological philosophy of history. In his last essay, (...) which is the main subject of my lecture, Patočka sketches out a “history of the philosophy of the meaning of human life, beginning with Kant” and sets forth his own concept of the meaning of history, influenced by Heideggerian motifs. I present a concise interpretation of his idea and take a critical position towards it. (shrink)

_The Gift of Death_, Jacques Derrida’s most sustained consideration of religion, explores questions first introduced in his book _Given Time_ about the limits of the rational and responsible that one reaches in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution, or suicide. Derrida analyzes Czech philosopher Jan Patocka’s _Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History _and develops and compares his ideas to the works of Heidegger, Lévinas, and Kierkegaard. One of Derrida’s major works, _The Gift of Death_ (...) resonates with much of his earlier writing, and this highly anticipated second edition is greatly enhanced by David Wills’s updated translation. This new edition also features the first-ever English translation of Derrida’s _Literature in Secret_. In it, Derrida continues his discussion of the sacrifice of Isaac, which leads to bracing meditations on secrecy, forgiveness, literature, and democracy. He also offers a reading of Kafka’s _Letter to His Father_ and uses the story of the flood in Genesis as an embarkation point for a consideration of divine sovereignty. “An important contribution to the critical study of ethics that commends itself to philosophers, social scientists, scholars of religion... [and those] made curious by the controversy that so often attends Derrida.”—_Booklist_, on the first edition. (shrink)