A book of essays written to celebrate an important anniversary of Jiří Gabriel, a teacher of philosophy that the author is heavily indebted to, dealing with various approaches to philosophy and life with philosophy. It is an expression of gratitude for models of conduct and behavior of a man trained in philosophy, critical thinking and rational assessment of life situations, as well as an attempt to sketch traits of Gabriel’s personality distinguishing him from various, not always praiseworthy unwritten rules of common life in university society. The work is not meant to be a tract describing, assessing and classifying Gabriel’s educated work in institutionalized philosophy, nor does it aspire to be. The times of tracts shall only come and, as usual with tracts, they make living thought something it never was and wished to be. The work is a mere reflexion of forms of Jiří Gabriel’s influence on the authors life in the past decades of the author’s life; an influence far greater than Jiří Gabriel is aware of.

The essay recapitulates the life and career of Rudolf Krejčí, a Czech–American philosopher, born in south Moravia. Krejčí left for exile in 1949, first to Austria and in 1958 to USA, where he has been living for 52 years, 42 of which in Alaska. The essay reminds of the basic dates of his life, places where he has lived, schools where he studied, jobs that he has had and his work at the University of Alaska, where he founded the Department of Philosophy and Humanities. He has brought up 15 000 students there, held important academic functions and done philosophical research in philosophy of science and ethics. He has also lectured in Canada, England, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Greece, China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

The meditation focuses on the biblical concept of quietude, as described in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It presents quotations from various editions of the Bible and offers basic etymological and semantic context which makes the content of the idea more accessible. Besides that the work stresses the revolutionary character of Christianity with respect to Judaism, Greek rationalism and Roman etatism: those at the social periphery mean hope for its future. The core of the work is an attempt to analyze the inner structure of the phenomenon of quietness with the following constants: seeming passivity, taste and decency. The content of the constants is distinguished from the ordinary language content by means of a confrontation with historical-philosophical conceptions.

Franz Brentano was probably the most important of Edmund Husserl’s teachers. While philosophy at Charles University did not pay much attention to him, Brentano became the greatest authority for the philosophers of “Prague German University”. – The author of this paper reflects mainly on three important figures of Prague German philosophy (Oskar Kraus, Carl Stumpf, Emil Utitz): figures that were very different (in their world views, attitudes to Czech philosophy and political orientations). What brings them together is Brentano’s legacy. – Besides a number of factual and nowadays little-known historical data the author presents a personal memory of Emil Utitz.

The essay has been inspired by Jiří Gabriel’s interest in the work of the philosopher and sociologist J. L. Fischer (1894–1973). The author presents the letters that Fischer addressed to his university professor Otokar Fischer (1883–1938) from December 1919 to August 1933. The correspondence, saved in the Literary archive of the Memorial of National Literature, proves a friendly relationship between both thinkers and discloses their inner world and literary work. It enables the reader to get to know J. L. Fischer’s personality and the circumstances influencing his philosophical development. Fisher among other things describes his publication goals and achievements, professional career, philosophy, work in the edition of Index and his personal life.

This article deals with some axiological problems in the Czech philosophical thinking during the period between the two World Wars. In the first part the author depicts the reasons which brought about an increased interest in the problems of values and evaluation. In this context you can read about the solutions to these problems which are represented by the philosophers J. B. Kozák, J. Tvrdý and K. Engliš. The largest part of the article is devoted to the life and work of the philosopher Blahoslav Zbořil, whose book called The Understanding, Evaluation and Creation of Norms is considered to be the only study connected with this period that deals with axiological problems directly and presents their original solutions.

In a stream of personal memories and balance overviews we deal with the work and personality of an important Brno aesthetician and critic Oleg Sus (1924 Brno – 1982 Brno). O. Sus was a son of a Russian emigrant Michail Jakovlevič Sus (1902 Ekaterinovskaya in Russia – 1971 Brno) and Emilie Susová (maiden name Burešová, 1896 Brno – 1968 Brno) and he declared his origin. He was tied to Brno milieu from his youth and to the Faculty of Arts and the magazine Host do domu (A guest in the house) from his university studies. After 1970 he lost a permanent job, was banned from his former workplace and only published abroad. At that time he depended on local or foreign correspondence and personal contacts with some of his colleagues, friends, students, one of whom was Jiří Gabriel (mind for instance their cooperation in holding a conference celebrating Mirko Novák´s anniversary). Further to the previous remark we deal in detail with O. Sus´ help with publishing activities and professional growth of the author of this work. This study follows some of our previous works, starting with a typed collection (1984), but mainly the essays published since 1990 in journals and books. It also presents an selective overview of some of Sus´ works and makes use of other essays as well (including materials from inheritance including important biographic information).

Commemorating a jubilee of a Brno philosopher Jiří Gabriel, the author of this essay focuses on an important figure of Czech and world thought, John Amos Comenius. The goal is to show how the philosophical-theological concept of General Consultation was ahead of its time, mainly with respect to protestant orthodoxy. The focus is on the sixth part of General Consultation Panorthosia (Universal Improvement), which became a source of criticism of his concept of Pansophia (Universal Science) in the final part of his life.

Discussion and proposal of a resolution of the problem of the incompatibility between being and being-to-be (in the conception of Ota Weinberger) by means of the ontological intepretation of norms.

The article is based on evolutionary ontology and deals with the basis of technology, two branches of technological development, the process of evolution of technology and a little known problem of the compatibility of biosphere with the sphere of technology. The author claims that technology is a way, procedure or algorithm by which man uses and controls living and non-living natural processes, structures and powers for their own cultural purposes. The tool, the machine and the automatic system are considered to form the evolution of abiotic technology. The first stage of biotic technology is considered to be hunting and gathering, the second being planetary spread of agriculture, animal keeping and breeding. The third phase consists of modern biotechnologies, cloning and genetic manipulation. At the end the author points out that technology is the most active anti-natural subsystem of culture, is incompatible with living nature, suppresses it and irreversibly damages. As it absorbs new structural information, though, it could form, in a regime of bio-friendly culture, an efficient way of reducing the current ecological crisis.

The work deals with the influence of the French Revolution and the related neo-humanist movement on the first phase of Czech national revival from the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th centuries. First it notices some changes in the interpretation of the French Revolution, especially in contemporary historical studies, and rejects criticisms of the revolution. It shows how German society reacted to the revolution and how the German neo-humanist movement and its major concept of “antique ideal” emerged under the influence of it. The conditions in Germany serve as tertium comparationis to the situation in Bohemia. It is claimed that we can find a positive attitude toward French Revolution in Bohemia too, especially in protestant and free mason circles. That made the reception of new humanism in Bohemia easier, since neo-humanism was based on revolutionary ideas as well as German protestantism and its humanist dimension. New humanism was then able to play a positive role in the emancipatory process of Czech society for almost the whole of the first half of 19th century.

Josef Jungmann laid the foundation of literature and science written in Czech by his scientific activity. He was a leading figure of Czech national revival in the early 19th century. However, Jungmann’s reception in later Czech thought was rather mixed. Masaryk rejected his liberalism, Patočka his language conception of nation. From 1845, at the end of his life, Jungmann recorded his memories and especially opinions on a number of public and private themes. The records, published under the title Memoirs, play an important role in fully understanding Jungmann’s personality.

The author of this paper has thoroughly studied the correspondence between I. Kant and J. H. Lambert and deals with the problem of Lambert’s influence on the creation and shape of the transcendental method used in Kant’s central work The Critique of Pure Reason. He points out that the discussion on the method stems from a deeper problem of the a general conception of metaphysics. Both authors as well as several other prominent philosophers of the time advocated differing positions. While Lambert only reformed traditional metaphysics (in dianoiology, alethiology, semiotics and phenomenology), Kant considered the reforms hopeless and created the method of transcendental criticism in his Critique of Pure Reason to serve as a foundation for new metaphysics that could be regarded a science. The study shows in detail the long-term problems that the process went through.

The author of the essay focuses on the history and sources of Neo-Kantianism. He points out two sources: a negative one and a positive one. The positive source is historicism and a negative relation to Kant. The concept of historicity (Geschichtlichkeit) relates mainly to the way of being of human spirit and its products. This term had appeared in the works of Hegel, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche, but it was only with Dilthey that it received greater publicity. Dilthey meant by the term a basic existential structure of man: namely the fact that man is not just “drawn” into history, but this “draw” is an essential characteristic of human being. The other source is the relation to Kant taken as an attribute differentiating between the individual philosophers. The return to Kant is a basic sign of Neo-Kantianism, since at the time of its emergence the opinion that it is necessary to give up Hegel’s panlogism was widely spread. The author also believes that we should regard the return to Kant as dispensation with the requirement of scientism (exactness) and also as a defense against the attempts to place philosophy outside scientifically regarded culture. The essay ends with a sketch of metaphysical exposition of Kant’s transcendental philosophy.

The text is devoted to partial argumentative analysis of Descartes’ Meditations in terms of persuasive schemes of personal argumentatiton. Descartes’ Meditations are used as a source of illustrations for various types of personal reasoning and the corresponding critical questions. Attention is given both to positive and negative form of a personal argumentation, namely to a pattern of ad hominem and ad verecundiam. The analysis presents variations of argumentative scheme and relevant evaluation tool. The text also offers justification for the interpretation of Descartes’ salutation ‘O caro’ as a persuasive move within the meaning of ad hominem argumentation, which is reflected in its controversial Czech translation.

The work deals with Voltaire’s method of writing history. It points out Voltaire’s critique of earlier historical studies. Voltaire criticized them for narrow geographic and subject scope and tried to overcome these drawbacks in his own work. Methodologically he continued the 17th century criticism of sources and considered how to find the truth or at least verisimilitude in historical studies. The second part of the work focuses on Voltaire’s critique of J. B. Bossuet, C. Montesquieu, J.-J. Rousseau and B. Pascal.

The first question relates to Pavel Materna’s career, to the circumstances that have positively formed his professional growth. In the reply to the second question Materna confides what brought him to the determined promotion and development of Transparent Intensional Logic started by his late colleague Pavel Tichý. The motivation for the third question was Materna’s long-term pedagogical work in logic at colleges in Prague and Brno. Finally, a few “logical jokes” document Materna’s famous sense of humor.

A translation of Kant’s work Ende aller Dinge (The End of All Things) from 1794, one of his polemical religious-philosophical works, has been published in Czech for the first time. It enables readers to meet one of the typical expressions of Kant’s post-critical philosophy (besides his works on philosophy of history, anthropology and political philosophy). The work clearly shows Kant’s dissatisfaction with contemporary understanding of the place of religion in society, and shows why the author got into conflict with clerical and political power of the time. The translation is introduced by a brief outline of the historical context of Kant’ s work, its place in the framework of the philosopher’s work and its reflection among Kant’s contemporaries, which resulted in an official ban imposed on Kant’s works and lectures related to religion by Friedrich Wilhelm II .

Opening speech on the evening dedicated to the life and work ethics and historian of philosophy, associate professor Karel Hlavoň (January 21, 1930 to July 30, 2009).