Thirty-five 35 participants from 13 countries gathered at Villa Lanna July 16-19, 2014 to hear and discuss presentations on the life and work of one of the foremost European philosophers of the 19th century, Bernard Bolzano. Most of the 30 talks given were on philosophy but mathematics and theology. More than a quarter of the participants were research students. Several news stories have drawn attention to recent developments in Bolzano studies. In May the complete English translation of Bolzano’s major work Wissenschaftslehre (Theory of Science) was published. This year nearly three-quarters of the129 volumes of the Bernard Bolzano Gesamtausgabe will appear in print. The program and other details of the meeting can be found at bolzano2014.wordpress.com. The meeting enjoyed generous sponsorship. Details on the dissemination of the papers will appear in due course. This meeting was co-organised by the Institute of Philosophy of ASCR and the International Bernard Bolzano Society, Salzburg. The Society met in Prague in April 2010 on the 200th anniversary of a book of his published in 1810. Dr. Balzano (1781-1848) was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher and theologian of Italian extraction and taught at the University of Prague (Charles). and Arianna Betti, Steve Russ.
The European Network for Housing Research organized a conference in Prague June 28-July 1. This meeting of experts focused on the role and “power” of housing and mortgage markets, which is rapidly changing, especially by increasing the influence these markets have on the wider economy and sustainable development of many societies. and Tomáš Kostelecký.
In 1963 Karel Kosík, a Czech neomarixt philosopher, published his trailblazing book, Dialectics of the Concrete. Both Marxist and non-Marxist thinkers were impacted in Czechoslovakia and throughout the world. The Institute of Philosophy hosted an international conference to explore Kosik’s seminal work in breadth and depth. In his book, Kosík strove to re-think the basic concepts of the Marxist philosophical tradition and to employ them in analyzing social reality. The wide array of issues he explored are still relevant today. Included are mystification of the "pseudo-concrete"; the social role of art; the conception of reality as a concrete totality; the conception of the human being as an onto-formative being (i.e., one that forms human and extra-human reality in its totality); the systematic connection between labor and temporality; the relationship between praxis and labour and the explanatory power of the dialectical method. This conference took place July 4-6, 2014 at Villa Lanna. and Jan Mervart.
The topmost meeting of experts in the area of nuclear physics and elementary particle physics, took place in Prague March 21-27, 2009. It provided an international science forum for exchanging information on computing experience and needs for the High Energy and Nuclear Physics communities, and also reviewed recent, ongoing and future activities. CHEP conferences are held in 18-month intervals (the last conference was held in Canada 2007). Nuclear physics and elementary particle physics (called high-energy physics today) represent branches that are also crucial for development in the area of computers and data processing. For example, it is particle physics that is credited for the emergence of the World Wide Web. and Alan Silverman, Miloš Lokajíček a Jiří Rameš, Jiří Dolejší.
The European Molecular Biology Organization organized a meeting in Prague October 1-3. At this symposium several topics were discussed: biology and genetics of mitochondria in relation to cancer; the role of mitochondria-targeting compounds in cancer suppression (including BH3 mimetics); mitochondria as transmitters of death receptor-induced apoptosis; regulation of apoptosis and the interplay of mitochondria with other organelles p53 and mitochondria in apoptosis regulation; and the role of mitochondria in targeting cancer stem cells. and Jiří Neužil, Ladislav Anděra a Alois Kozubík.
A Seminar of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) was organized in collaboration with the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS and the Czech Association of Social Anthropologists on the occasion of the EASA Annual General Meeting on October 14-15, 2015. The seminarMaking Anthropology Matter was intended as a forum to discuss the role that anthropology as an academic discipline and intellectual endeavour plays and could play in the contemporary European public sphere. Some of the themes under discussion were mobility, migration and multiculturalism; economic crises, neoliberalism and human economies; and environment, sustainability and responses to climate change. The event was tied to the current Executive Committee’s priority of strengthening the position of anthropology at different levels across Europe. and Zdeněk Uherek.
Questions concerning the 1989 democratic revolutions and the collapse of "real socialism" in East Central Europe were a highlight of an international conference in Prague organized by two AS CR Institutes. The conference’s aim was to historicize the democratic revolutions of 1989, moving beyond the dominant "transitological" understanding of these revolutions in terms of the "End of Communism" and the "Beginning of Democracy." These were questions discussed: "Did these revolutions and the end of "real socialism" signal the end of revolutionary regimes and the beginning of a "restoration," or rather the replacement of worn-out communist revolutions with a new, neoliberal revolution? Or, considering the nonviolent character of the events, did they really constitute a revolution at all?" It was observed that modern political identities and ideological currents are marked by their attitudes toward the pheno-menon of revolution and toward various historical revolutionary models. Other themes were, "Democratic, Liberal, or Neoliberal Revolution? Dissent, Post-Dissent, and the Ideas of 1989. The End of History or the End of the Future? Theories of Soviet-type Society. The Second Life of the 1968 Prague Spring in 1989." Hosting the conference were the Department for the Study of Late Socialism and Post-Socialism of the Institute of Contemporary History ASCR and the Department for the Study of Modern Czech Philosophy of the Philosophy Institute ASCR, held October 2-3, 2014 at the Villa Lana. and Petr Kužel.