The article deals with interpretation of a text from a philosophical perspective. The starting point is conception of interpretation as an art; this conception was formulated by hermeneutics in relation to the specific demands of the methodology of humanities. Interpretation approaches of the 20th century are characterised by elaborating the basic interpretation theories with respect to philosophical styles and main strains of thought. As it is a theme that touches several research fields, significant pieces of knowledge not only from philosophy, but also from literary science or aesthetic areas are briefly presented in the article.

This paper mainly deals with Suárez’s theory of inner sensual knowledge – one of the traditional issues in the works of Aristotle’s disciples, but nowadays hardly reflected. The aim of this paper is also to show the reader how Francisco Suárez deals with the inner sensation problem in his commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima, and also to demonstrate how Suárez criticizes the Aquinas’ analysis of this problem and offers his own simpler solution. Suárez refuses any possibility of plurality of inner senses and also denies any possibility that inner senses can somehow reason about things as well as the intellect.

The Return to TGM of 1945–1948 brought a new reading of Masaryk’s theoretical and political legacy. In that social situation, what was particularly emphasized was Masaryk’s philosophy of democracy and his social philosophy was misinterpreted as socialist with the goal of sustaining and renewing positive values that his work and politics had been associated with. The after-war period initiated further interest in Masaryk and his conceptions of science, philosophy, sociology, religion, philosophy of Czech history, philosophy of politics and philosophical anthropology.

In this work the author focuses on Voltaire’s method of writing history. She presents Voltaire’s critique of earlier historiography, whose scope Voltaire considered to be too narrow both geographically and in its subject. He attempted to remedy these limitations in his work. Methodologically, he takes up the results of the critique of sources of the 17th century and thinks about the ways of reaching the truth or verisimilitude in history. The second part is devoted to Voltaire’s critique of J. B. Bossuet, C. Montesquieue,J.-J. Rousseau and B. Pascal.

Fischer’s pedagogical work in Brno after WWII falls within the years 1945–1951 a 1957–1959. PhDr. Jiří Gabriel, met professor Fischer in person in 1957 after his return to the department in Brno. The majority of the quoted letters and greetings comes from 1969–1973. The last letter was written by J. L. Fischer about a month before his death († 17. 2. 1973). The letters provide evidence of professor Fischer’s diligence as well as his warm relationship to people around him.

Václav Štěpán (1889–1944), a graduate in musicology from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague is primarily known as a composer, pianist and modern music exponent. This work focuses on his philosophical and aesthetic thoughts. Štěpán was an aesthetician following up Otakar Hostinský and his school. He dealt with symbolism in program music and, more generally, with the communicative aspects of music. Pečman, in this respect, explores his relationship to Otakar Hostinský, Otakar Zich and foreign theories of the role of symbols in music. – This essay commemorates the musicologist and music aesthetician Rudolf Pečman, who would have been 80 years old this year. The essay was presented by Pečman an the conference Czech Philosophical Thought in 1920s–1960s conference, held by the Department of Philosophy of Masaryk University in 1989.

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).

Condemnation of 1277 was an intervention in the scientific research of many scholastic authors. Duns Scotus worked after 1277. The aim of this paper is to identify the philosophical motives in which the philosophy of Duns Scotus and Condemnation of 1277 over­lap, and to examine if Scotus’ thinking was under a direct influence of the Condemnation. The author of this paper maintains that the main motivation for Scotus’ philosophy was the Franciscan tradition, and that the influence of Condemnation of 1277 was not significant.

Understanding of the term of crisis significantly influences the main argumentation line of the philosophical conceptions stimulated by the reflection of the crisis. The deep ecology of A. Naess belongs to these philosophical concepts. The term of crisis in his thinking appears in a form of a threat as well as opportunity, necessity to make important decisions. It also has a meaning of historical and political crisis, i.e. situations in which under the pressure the basic imperatives and organizational principles of the society are reformulated. Such a broad semantic spectre of the crisis concept is connected with the fact that Naess wants to address not only ecologists, environmentalists and philosophers, but also political scientists and social activists by which he greatly contributed to the constitution of environmentalism as a political movement as well as a political ideology

The archaic poets were the first witnesses and also intellectual generators of process­es led to the constitution of social-political structures of classical Greek poleis. Tyrtaios (1st half of 7th century BC) is one of the oldest. In his elegy (fr. 12) he set thouridos alkē (furious valour) as an ultimate virtue. This phrase can be already found in Homer who uses it as a name for one of the many warriors’ aretai. The aim of the paper is to give a complex analysis of fr. 12, explore the meaning of the phrase used by both poets, and show a new context in which it was set by Tyrtaios. Consequently, we try to grasp one of the origins of the “new rational-political order” and show the way, how the lyric trans­formed the old epic values into the new political ones.

This paper examines one of the current approaches to metaphor which views meta­phor more as figure of thought than figure of speech, and puts it into perspective with philosophical discussions of the structure of thought. After reviewing conceptual meta­phor and root metaphor, we focus on the significance and prevalence of metaphors un­derlying our thinking. We argue that both of these theories support a view of metaphor as cruical for rational and conceptual thinking, hence metaphor holds an important position in philosophy. Furthermore, we analyze the influence of metaphorical thinking on con­tents and forms of philosophical problems and we argue that this opens up the possibility of new interesting research-worthy topics.

The article deals with the problem of induction in the philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to present the problem of induction, types of induction, which are reliable in science and to point out that the problem of induction is not just a problem of scientific realism, but it also strikes the Bayesian theory. The central attention is paid to the discussion if subjective probability account could help with problematic nature of induction and if justification of induction is really a deal. The paper concludes by claim­ing that even though no Bayesian thesis allowed us to think that probability is a solution to Hume’s problem of induction and there are several attempts in history to dismiss the problem, the history of science is connected with inductive inferences and the problem of justifying induction remains for philosophy of science