Abstract

Bernard Bolzano, the famous logician and mathematician, worked from 1805-1819 as a religious professor at the Prague University. His studies focused on three main themes: ethical education, including a rather liberal sexual education as well as the problems of the coexistence of Czechs and Germans in one country ; social problems, where he formulated for the first time his social-utopian vision of human society based on the fundamental equality of people, ideas later gathered in his book, Von dem besten Staate; and philosophy and religion, of which his lectures concentrate on the social function of the Church and the social mission of the priesthood. Because of his opinions, he was disqualified from his professorship, resulting in a Church investigation against him. He was unable to return to the university, denied the right to publish in Austria, and relegated to live out his life as a private research worker. Bolzano's fate is similar to that of another pedagogue from Bohemia-Jan Patocka.