Czech translation of T. W. Adorno’s Die Aktualität der Philosophie.

The paper discusses Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves, phenomena and noumena, and the problem of affection. The difference between appearances and things in themselves is understood as a methodological difference between two manners in which an object can be viewed: either as an appearance, or as a thing in itself. The author claims that this double-aspect view is a consequence of Kant’s conception of space and time as a priori forms of sensibility. The difference between phenomena and (...) noumena, on the other hand, cannot be explained only by the double-aspect view; Kant understands it also as an ontological difference between two different kinds of objects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the problem of affection. The author claims that this problem is a pseudo-problem if we understand the difference between appearances and things in themselves as double-aspect view. Kant had maintained only an empirical affection. Passages in which Kant seems to advocate a transcendental affection can be brought in line with Kant’s critical philosophy. (shrink)

Book review: Aleš Zapletal, Obrazy filozofie a tělesná mysl, Praha (Akademie výtvarných umění), 2022, 247 p.

In the 1930s, the playwright Bertolt Brecht had a marked impact on Walter Benjamin’s life and thinking. Brecht’s epic theatre inspired Benjamin to write several texts in which the philosopher explores the concept of the “quotable gesture”. This article aims to offer an interpretation of the quotable gesture as a methodological tool for the critique of the modern alienation of tradition and the crisis of thinking. Drawing on selected essays, I analyse the principle of gestural citation as a critical-hermeneutical principle (...) in which common pre-understanding is to be suspended in favour of particular attention towards the phenomenal and to one’s own thinking. (shrink)

In the first part, the author sketches the problem of human existence as it appears in the texts of both philosophers. The second part enumerates all Patočka’s texts mentioning Jaspers as well as all of the works by Jaspers that we know Patočka reflected on. The third part traces in more detail Jaspers’ book Philosophical Faith, in which Patočka, in his own words, found “great stimuli”, and shows several links between Patočka’s own philosophy and the book (especially four themes: the (...) relation between philosophy and science; between philosophy and revealed religion; between philosophy and “non-philosophy”; between philosophy and history). The fourth part traces the idea of the origin of the free human act, which was explored by both Patočka and Jaspers. Finally, the article shows that despite similar or even identical lines of thought on certain topics – including a topic as fundamental as human freedom –, the authors offer two fundamentally different visions of reality that could be labelled as “ontology vs. metaphysics” or “the totality of the world vs. extra-worldly transcendence”. (shrink)

Czech translation of O. J. Herstein’s Justifying Subversion: Why Nussbaum Got (the Better Interpretation of) Butler Wrong.

Commentary on meaning of the cross of Christ according to Teilhard de Chardin.

The paper advocates the view that within Kant’s project of transcendental philosophy, the metaphysical problem of the relation between body and soul is reduced to an epistemic problem. The paper also aims to demonstrate the particular implications of this reduction with regard to the issues addressed in metaphysical conceptions of the relation between body and mind. Further, it is shown what conception of matter Kant develops within his reduction.

The paper presents some common motifs of two thinkers who, despite a historical gap of several hundred years, had common roots in the tradition of Judaism. The notion of the Encounter, as analysed by Emmanuel Levinas, and the cosmogonic process of Creation in Isaac Luria’s system of thought have a common motif in the phenomenon of the socalled “contraction” (Hebrew: tzimtzum). Despite the fact that for the first thinker it is the domain of ethics and for the second the domain (...) of ontology, the act of a certain “self-limitation” or “withdrawal” plays in both cases a foundational role. (shrink)

Commentary on the previous article of Stanislav Sousedík.

The paper analyses two preliminary epistemological problems in Robert Spaemann’s philosophy that have not yet been addressed as mutually linked. The common root of both problems lies in the way Spaemann specifically applies Kant’s statement “being is not a real predicate”. The first problem concerns the criteria for distinguishing between waking and dream cognition, the second the criteria for distinguishing a living being from a simulation. The analysis shows, among other things, the broader context of Spaemann’s epistemological position, its three (...) main characteristics, and Spaemann’s specific use of the term Anerkennung (“acknowledgement”), which he adopted from German idealism. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the motif of hope, which plays an important role in Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy. Hope builds a bridge between ethics and the philosophy of religion, and it does so as part of the highest good. I examine the notion of hope in Kant’s thought in three steps, based on three texts: Critique of Pure Reason (Canon of Pure Reason), Critique of Practical Reason (Postulates of Pure Practical Reason; Ethico-Theology), and Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (...) (Theory of Radical Evil in Human Nature). I provide arguments to show that, for Kant, hope is a necessary motive. Hope is understood as an attitude of reason, rather than as an emotion. I further demonstrate that in the concept of hope, the desire for happiness intersects with the desire to live well morally. The function of hope, in the context of a lifetime of moral practice, is to help remove obstacles to leading a moral life. Hope is not needed to know what to do. Hope is necessary as a component of the meaningfulness of the whole. The impossibility or loss of hope for the ultimate meaning, as including the achievement of one’s own bliss, would make the lifelong pursuit of morality impossible. Finally, hope turns out to be necessary as a response to the thesis of radical evil in human nature. (shrink)

Interview of Jakub Sirovátka with Maximilian Forschner and Rudolf Langthaler.

Book review: Tereza Matějčková, Bůh je mrtev. Nic není dovoleno, Praha (Echo Media), 2023, 329 p.

Commentary on Karl Jaspers’ concept of philosophical faith.

The article explores the possibilities of using civic republicanism in order to criticize Nozickian libertarianism on the ground of its own premises, especially the emphasis it puts on individual freedom. It evaluates the critique to which Nozick’s theory has been subjected to by Ian Shapiro, finding Shapiro’s objections lacking in understanding, yet valid in principle. The second line of attack is then led via the notion of freedom as non-domination (which inextricably intertwines it with democracy) and via the needs which (...) must be satisfied in order for a state to function as a safeguard for liberty in the contemporary world of multinational corporations. (shrink)

Czech translation of Günter Figal’s lecture Theorie und Praxis: Über die Möglichkeit ihrer klassischen Verhältnisbestimmung.

Commentary on the Karl Jaspers’ conception of faith.

Czech translation of Karl Jaspers’ Über meine Philosophie.

Book review: Raimond Gaita, Sdílené lidství. Přemýšlení o lásce, pravdě a spravedlnosti, Červený Kostelec (Pavel Mervart), transl. Jan Petříček, 2022, 248 p.

The aim of this essay is to investigate various attempts at possible answers regarding the question of what is real. The basic assumption is that Kant had provided a philosophical theory of a kind such that it allows this question to be answered in a novel way. In order to show that, the philosophical conceptions of his predecessors are investigated: the metaphysical concept of A. G. Baumgarten on the one hand, the empirical concept of D. Hume on the other. The (...) main result of the investigation is that, according to Kant, we can take something to be real only insofar as it is in a relationship to ourselves. (shrink)

Czech translation of Marguerite Léna’s Choisir l’ Europe: Constantin Sigov et la dignité humaine.

The study focuses on the relationship between K. Jaspers and S. Kierkegaard. First, it evaluates the current scholarship regarding Jaspers’ reception of Kierkegaard’s thought; second, it offers an independent analysis of Jaspers’ early work (especially the 1909 Heimweh und Verbrechen, and then the Psychologie der Weltanschauungen). It is demonstrated that Jaspers’ early work on nostalgia presents the first case study of limit situations (Grenzsituationen). The paper traces the link between Kierkegaard’s conception of aesthetic existence and Jaspers’ concept of limit situations. (...) It is shown that Jaspers’ study of nostalgia can be considered the original inspiration for the idea of limit situations, and that, at the same time, it was arguably Kierkegaard who had helped Jaspers to develop this germinal idea into a broader notion of limit situations. (shrink)

The essay presents Patočka’s intellectual relationship to Karl Jaspers on the basis of his texts from the 1960s and 1970s, with a starting point in the 1969 study What is Existence?. After introducing some general connections and differences, based in particular on the forms of heresy in both philosophers, the basic contours of the notion of existence are examined more closely. Patočka understands existence as the performance of a threefold movement that is in many respects problematic. The virtue of Jaspers’ (...) position, on the other hand, lies in its focused clarity. While both thinkers emphasize the concept of authentic performance, the key issue becomes its one-sidedness, which can be described as surrender without acceptance. (shrink)

Book review: Aristotelés, Etika Eudémova, Praha (Dybbuk), transl. Viktor Zavřel – Jan Brázdil, 2020, 168 p.