From the very beginnings of his thought, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was convinced that modern man, and likewise the culturally and politically emancipated Czech nation, was in a deep existential crisis closely linked with the spread of irreligiosity. Masaryk gradually came to believe that this crisis could be positively overcome on two levels. On a theoretical level, he relied on his specific classification and systematization of the sciences. On a practical level, which was directly based on his notion of positive sciences (...) and a strictly rational scientific approach, it was a matter of developing a new direction and method, which he characteristically conceived of as realism. On the eve of the First World War, Masaryk’s position became understandably radicalized. He distanced himself from a more objectivist view of religion and countered theism with a scientific and philosophical anthropism. (shrink)

Masaryk’s philosophical approach to reality is largely characterised by its orientation towards the positivism of Auguste Comte, which Masaryk sought to offset with the psychologism of J. S. Mill. The combination of these positivist approaches became the positive starting point for Masaryk’s ethics. But that was not the only influence on his ethics. Masaryk’s German translation of Hume’s book, titled Eine Untersuchung über die Prinzipien der Moral von David Hume (1883), reveals that the main stimuli that shaped Masaryk’s ideas about (...) ethics came from David Hume. Although the need for scientific evidence became a fundamental principle of Masaryk’s thought, the need to objectively anchor ethics in rational theism necessitated in this area a departure from his positivist outlook. Masaryk’s lectures on practical philosophy attest to this fact. The reason for his departure from a positivist stance was due to the metaphysical nature of his concept of psychology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to describe Whitehead’s specific interpretation of what was originally Plato’s concept of the "receptacle". Whitehead, in line with his own process philosophy, understands Plato’s concept of the "receptacle" as a personal unity that, in its structural character, expresses the general principle that determines the constitution of the whole of our reality. The author of this paper begins by briefly describing Plato’s concept of hypodoché. The author then goes on to present Whitehead’s specific interpretation of (...) this concept, which allows him to elaborate the potential parallels between Whitehead’s interpretation of hypodoché and his concept of "eternal objects". Finally, the author attempts to find the answer to a fundamental philosophical question: what in reality corresponds to Whitehead’s concept of "eternal objects". He suggests that a possible answer may be found in the General Systems Theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy. (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)

In the late 19th century, T. G. Masaryk presented his national programme. This vision of modern Czech society rested on the ideals of humanity, thus infusing the national ethos with a universal dimension. The significance of T. G. Masaryk's thought is investigated by current Czech thinkers in this volume.

The term ‘breakthrough generation’ was coined by the German philosopher Hugo Fischer (1897–1975) in 1930, at the very beginning of the Great Depression. This structural notion represents a timeless, emancipation oriented ideal that effectively integrates the relevant positive qualities and abilities of modern and critically thinking man, which he has potentially picked up in the course of his historical development towards a higher humanity as a European and realist, and which he actually possesses as qualities and norms. This complex ethos (...) is intended to form the initial basis on which the modern idea of a European federation is consciously realised. The purpose of this paper is not only to creatively point to these concrete and supporting motivational starting points and qualitative-historical assumptions of the modern European and to place them in a functional framework of intelligibility, but also to recall the important historical-philosophical fact that Fischer’s specifically grasped and developed idea of the formation of post-war Europe is very closely linked to the thinking of T. G. Masaryk, whom Fischer admired and respected as a philosopher and statesman and whose democratizing idea of a ‘new’ Central European space fundamentally inspired him in many ways. (shrink)

Cílem předloženého příspěvku je přiblížit Whiteheadovo specifické pojetí původně platónského pojmu „schránka“ (hypodoché), který v souvislosti se svou procesuální koncepcí Whitehead chápe jako osobní jednotu vyjadřující svým strukturálním charakterem obecný princip, jímž se řídí složení celku naší skutečnosti. Autor nejprve ve stručnosti naznačuje Platónovo vlastní pojetí hypodoché. Whiteheadovo specifické pojetí tohoto pojmu, jež je v základních rysech přiblíženo v dalším kroku, autorovi pak následně dovoluje podstatně popsat jeho možné konotace s pojmem „nadčasové skutečnosti“ (eternal objects). V samém závěru příspěvku se (...) autor pokouší nalézt odpověď na neméně zásadní filosofickou otázku, tj. na to, co ve skutečnosti odpovídá onomu principiálnímu popisu Whiteheadova pojmu „nadčasové skutečnosti“, a pro případ potřeby sledování směru dalšího bádání předznačuje, že jedna možná odpověď se nabízí v systémové teorii Ludwiga von Bertalanffyho. (shrink)