The article presents, in an integrated form, the main lines of Hejdánek’s thinking regarding ideology. It is based on published and unpublished texts and on sound recordings from his “apartment” seminars. Hejdánek does not approach ideology as being a fixed, ready-made system of tenets or dogmas, instead seeking a deeper understanding of the ideological mode of thought. The rise of ideologies is, according to him, a modern phenomenon, and Hejdánek considers it to be a kind of reprise of the myth in the modern age. He shows what is the precondition for the possibility of ideology, how ideology conditions human consciousness and how we can free ourselves from its power. According to Hejdánek, the starting point for this does not lie in a struggle with ideology on its own turf. Ideology can be overcome only by something that stands in radical opposition against it – that is, by the development of people into spiritual beings by way of truth, conscience and faith. and Článek v ucelené podobě představuje hlavní myšlenkové linie Hejdánkova uvažování o ideologii. Opírá se o vydané i nevydané texty a o zvukové záznamy bytových seminářů. Hejdánek nezkoumá ideologii jako určitý hotový systém pouček či dogmat, ale sestupuje k hlubším předpokladům ideologického způsobu myšlení. Vzestup ideologií je podle něj teprve novověký fenomén a Hejdánek jej pokládá za jakousi novodobou reprízu mýtu. Odhaluje, co je podmínkou možnosti ideologie, čím si ideologie podmaňuje lidské vědomí a jak se můžeme vysvobozovat z její moci. Východisko podle Hejdánka nespočívá v souboji s ideologií jejími vlastními prostředky. Ideologie může být překonána jedině něčím, co se postaví do radikálního protikladu proti jakékoli ideologičnosti – tedy rozvojem člověka jako duchovní bytosti skrze pravdu, svědomí a víru.
The study is devoted to the philosophical bequest of the Czech philo¬sopher Robert Kalivoda (1923–1089). Author fist evaluates his contribu¬tion to understanding a key period of Czech history, the Hussite move¬ment. By analysing economic and ideological conditions in the 14th and 15th centuries Kalivoda shows, that the Hussite movement was the first European early bourgeois revolution, bringing about fundamental changes in the structure of feudal society by paralysing the economic and philosophic potential of the Church as a fundamental component of the social order. Philosophically the movement created, out of elements of mediaeval philosophic realism and of the views of various heretical groups, an ideology of emancipation, anticipating ideas of later revolu¬tionary movements.
The second part of the study develops Kalivoda’s conception of the aesthetic function, starting from the conceptions of Jan Mukařovský, and thinks through its consequences for the humanisation of humans and society. Subsequently, the study analyses Kalivoda’s view of the so-called anthropological constant as the deepest layer of human existence and of its makeup. Kalivoda starts from Marx’s conception of a dialectical relation between hunger and sex and from their influence on the functioning of society. The author takes issue with Sigmund Freud’s conception according to which the sublimation of sexual instinct into the sphere of the “Higher I” (“Über-ich”) has solely an aggressive and repressive character and shows, that it involves non-aggressive sublimation as well, which – especially in the form of revolutionary activities – has a positive influence on social development.
In Dialectics of the Concrete (1963), Karel Kosík entered into a virtual dialogue with Herbert Marcuse on philosophy and social theory. Central to this discussion is the necessity and freedom dialectic. Kosík referred to several of Marcuse’s works, arguing that Marcuse aimed to abolish philosophy and replace it with social theory. I review two other of Marcuse’s significant works, which were written within this period and are relevant to Kosík’s argument. I conclude that there is great value in re-examining and going further into Marcuse’s extensive investigations of the necessity and freedom dialectic. Kosík’s assessments, based on Marx’s concept of labor in Theories of Surplus Value, and in Capital, vol. 3, on the potential of freedom in the realm of necessity, were ultimately truer than were Marcuse’s conclusions with respect to the development of the necessity and freedom dialectic from Hegel to Marx. But, unlike Marcuse’s approach, Kosík’s assessment of the philosophic dimension involved a conception of Schelling’s instead of Hegel’s ideas as the primary link to Marx’s concept of the dialectic of the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom – the transition from a capitalist to a post-capitalist society. Kosík’s approach obscured Hegel’s detailed examination and illumination of this issue, the brilliance of which involved a historical version of philosophy’s integration of social theory. The latter enabled Marx’s eventual consummation of his theory of the transition from a capitalist to a post-capitalist society, which remains, even to this day, the crucial issue underlying the on-going philosophy-social theory dialectic.
The society of knowledge is made an object of investigation by many contemporary authors. Its basic characteristics, however, were captured by Radovan Richta as long ago as the 1960’s. Richta was one of the first theoreticians to point out that know¬ledge, and the all-round development of man, is becoming an economic factor. In his pioneering conception, Richta was inspired by Marx, who analysed the basic principles of the society of knowledge as far back as the second half of the nineteenth century. The author interprets Marx’s conception with a special emphasis on the contradictions which appear between the demands of the all-round developed person and that of the capitalist economy. In conclusion, the author formulates the thesis that the contemporary society of knowledge is a society of fluid alienation in which knowledge acquires an alienated character.
This article discusses the methodological aspects of Marx’s theoretical approach. It draws on the epistemology of Gaston Bachelard, and especially on the interpretation of Louis Althusser. It examines in detail Bachelard’s concepts of connaissance commune and epistemological rupture, and also Althusser’s distinction between “Generalities I” and “Generalities III”, while putting these concepts into the context of Marx’s critique of political economy. A significant focus here is also the distinction between “real object” and “the object of knowledge”, as well as the concepts of Darstellung, structural causality and overdetermination (surdétermination). The article demonstrates that Marx’s method of the historicising and denaturalising theoretical categories can be an effective instrument in de-ideologising the areas which Althusser characterises as “theoretical ideology”.
The central question of philosophical anthropology is: What is the difference between man and other living beings? While traditionally philosophers attempted to answer this question by pointing to a certain property or ability belonging exclusively to man, Karl Marx performed a theoretical revolution in philosophical anthropology by introducing a new way of how to deal with the problem of anthropological difference. The aim of the paper is, firstly, to analyse the very form, which is common for the answers to the central question of philosophical anthropology, and to describe the dynamic which is characteristic for discussions concerning the anthropological difference. Secondly it depicts Ludwig Feuerbach’s solution to the problem, in which he introduced the concept of a species being. The third step focuses on Marx’s understanding of human nature, in which a central place is given to the concept of species powers. The fourth step sketches Marx’s own solution to the problem of the anthropological difference. In the final step a consideration is given to the underlying motivation of this solution.