Petr Dvořák hájí ve své knize Kauzalita činitele libertariánské pojetí svobody lidské vůle. Vůli považuje za duševní schopnost člověka a její svobodu spatřuje v možnosti její sebedeterminace. Tuto tezi autor tohoto příspěvku kritizuje. Dokazuje, že sebedeterminující schopnost je contradictio in terminis. Libertariánsky pojatá svobodná vůle je možná jen, pokud není schopností. Takovou vůlí je pouze vůle Boží (za předpokladu, že Bůh existuje). Autor připojuje historické upozornění, že autorem omylu zaměňujícího lidskou vůli s Boží je renezanční teolog Ludvík Molina, že k (...) jeho stoupencům náležel i René Descartes. (shrink)

The author attempts to give an analysis of negative existential statements, in which the subject is a proper name. In contrast to many contemporary philosophers he thinks that this analysis is possible also in the case that we understand a proper name in the same way as Mill or Kripke. The purpose of this paper is not only to provide an analysis of existential statements, but also to support Mill´s and Kripke´s theory of proper names. It was just the failure (...) to analyse negative existential statements that caused many theoreticians to incline towards the descriptive theory of proper names. Existential negative statements do not have, in author´s opinion, a subject-predicate structure. So, paradoxically, we do not speak about Homer in the statement Homer did not exist. This statement expresses that the name Homer does not have any bearer; and so we can say that the name is in some sense spurious. For this reason non-existential sentences that contain the name Homer do not have a truth-value, because their presupposition Homer did not exist is true. (shrink)

The author shows that Aquinas’s treatise on the Trinity can be viewed in two ways. According to the first, now prevailing opinion, the thoughts of the Angelic Doctor are too speculative and in essence they harm our personal relationship with God. He aims to show that the main source of inspiration for this approach are those currents in modern and contemporary philosophy according to which any metaphysics is impossible. Adherents of the other view do not reject metaphysics, and so they (...) are also sympathetic towards Aquinas’s connecting speculation with the Trinity doctrine. They see a great advantage in this connexion, as it allows us to understand more deeply the mysteries of faith and so to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Christian message. The author aims to show that both approaches are justified and one should not be sacrificed for the other. He believes that a philosophical framework allowing the old and the new Trinitarian theologies to coexist is provided by Wittgenstein’s conception of speech games. (shrink)

Second scholasticism, ​analytical metaphysics, and Christian apologetics are the three topics characteristic of the lifelong efforts of the eminent Czech philosopher Stanislav Sousedík, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2021. To honour this anniversary, a conference named accordingly was organized in Prague. The papers presented at this event — further elaborated by their authors and supplemented with Sousedík’s remarkable “Brief Autobiography” — constitute the gist of this book: a collective homage to Professor Sousedík and an attempt to promote and develop (...) his intellectual legacy. (shrink)

Discussion on Two Remarks on Ondřej Švec’s Note regarding Philosophy of History.

[Considerations on the interpretation of Frege's. logico-philosophical legacy].

The main purpose of this paper is to contest the Aristotelian notion that the objects of metaphysics, mathematics and physics are all abstract, which is the reason why these disciplines constitute a homogeneous class. For a reflection on the way how objects are introduced into scientific discourse leads to the conclusion that some of these objects (especially the mathematical ones) are fictions of reason an that their nature is defined purely by their mutual relationships. From this it follows that, far (...) from being theoretical sciences, the respective disciplines are justifiedly classified as arts. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion on the Positive Importance of Kant's Critique of Metaphysics.

The author explains in the following paper the main ideas of the substratum and bundle theories of individuals and tries than to sketch some important features of the traditional Aristotelian first-substance theory.

[Tichy's Criticism of the Causal Theory of the Proper Name].

The article shows the positions philosophers held to the relationship between a priori judgments and those judgments which are valid necessarily. Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th and 19th century, who, though often in different ways, opposed the concept of metaphysics and scholastic necessity , play the leading role. At the beginning of the 20th century analytic philosophy was born. Its first leaders inherited from their predecessors an antipathy to metaphysics, and so they had no desire to return again to the (...) traditional concept of necessity . Their logic and the new characterization of the a priori paved the way for the linguistic turn. Some of their followers in the second half of the 20th century realized that the concept needed to be returned to its original meaning . This is not a mere repetition of the Aristotelian-scholastic conception, but a new addition that rethinks the relationship between the notions of a priori and necessity. (shrink)