The fundamental democratic principles, among which we consider the principle of the State according to the Rule of Law as particularly significant, are being brought to life at present in the new democratic States of particularly Central Europe and in numerous developing countries. The implementation of these principles in the everyday life of society is the decisive indicator of the standard of political and legal culture which forms the framework of human rights. There is a plurality of theoretical concepts of human rights in the present day world, but the consensus in the fundamental concept of human rights is continuously increasing.
The puzzle of material constitution can be expressed in at least two ways. First, how can the constituting object and the constituted object, which are materially and spatially coincident, be regarded as different objects? Second, how can the constituting object and the constituted object, which are qualitatively distinct, be regarded as identical objects? Monists argue that the constituting and constituted objects are identical since they are materially and spatially coincident and the property differences between then are simply differences in description, perspective or context. In contrast, pluralists argue that the constituting and constituted objects are not identical even if they are materially and spatially coincident since they are qualitatively distinct. This paper proposes a solution to the puzzle of material constitution called ‘Fregean Monism’ (FM), and shows that it can better account for the property differences between the constituting and constituted objects without the need to regard them as two distinct objects. On the FM view, the puzzle of material constitution is partly a semantic puzzle and partly a metaphysical puzzle, and shows how a solution to the semantic part of the puzzle, based on the Fregean distinction between sense and reference, can yield a satisfactory solution to the metaphysical part of the puzzle. The key idea is that while the reference of a term picks out both the referent object and referent properties, the sense of the term determine which referent properties are picked out.
This study presents a systematic treatment of the critical rationalism of the German philosopher Hans Albert, a follower of Karl R. Popper. On the basis of an analysis of his key works (Traktat über kritische Vernunft, Die Wissenschaft und die Fehlbarkeit der Vernunft, Kritischer Rationalismus, Kritische Vernunft und Rationale Praxis etc.) the eight main methodological tenets of his philosophical conception are presented. They are: 1. universal criticism, 2. consequentialist fallibilism, 3. methodological revisionism, 4. critical realism, 5. theoretical pluralism, 6. constructive metaphysics, 7. the postulate of a single method of science, and 8. a proposal of a way of life. In reference to each of these tenets, the author explains the intellectual tradition in contrast to which Albert defines his own position and, at the same time, considers several critical objections to Albert’s assumptions. The study thus provides a relatively complex view of the subject-matter in question.
This article presents the contemporary conception of “environmental pragmatism” as an alternative strategy, still little known in the Czech context, for the solution of the problem of the relation between nature and culture. The point of departure for this conception are the ideas of the classical pragmatists, especially the naturalism and ethics of John Dewey. This philosophy bears within it an immanent environmental direction and it issues in the “Third Way” in the ecological movement, finding a path between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism; between individualism and holism; between instrumentalism and immanentism; between exploitation and preservation; between the dualisms of value and fact, aims and means, conservation and growth, and so on., Emil Višňovský., and Obsahuje poznámky a bibliografii