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.