| Description |
Prague University was divided into Czech University and German University in 1882. T. G. Masaryk (1850 - 1937) came to Prague as a professor of philosophy, who later became the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia in 1918. The inner logic of Masaryk's philosophy, developed in a number of his works, is in two closely related themes. One of them is Masaryk's philosophy of history, society and politics, in which he tried to describe the nature of socio-cultural changes. The other is his philosophy of man, morality and religion, in which he dealt primarily with the crisis of modern man. At the turn of the 20th century, Czech philosophy saw the rise of positivism (František Krejčí, František Čáda, František Drtina), idealist critique of positivism (František Mareš, Emanuel Rádl, Ladislav Klíma) and Czech neo-Thomism. After the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, new universities in Brno and Bratislava were founded. There were several philosophically oriented journals and Czech philosophy differentiated into several branches (positivism, idealism, structuralism, phenomenology, religious philosophy - both catholic and protestant, Marxism. During WWII Czech universities were closed down, but philosophical life still existed in limited spheres. In the 50s Marxist philosophy became the dominant philosophy in Czechoslovakia. Marxism-Leninism, or rather Stalinism was the only acceptable form of public philosophical thought. It was only in the 60s that Czechoslovakian society changed and philosophy went through some radical changes as well. It was not just a reform of Marxism, it was a whole new field for philosophical work as such. Contacts that had been interrupted with European and American, both Marxist and non-Marxist philosophy were re-established. Czech philosophy sought a dialogue with current fundamental schools of thought (neo-positivism, phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, Christian philosophy).
|