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PhD Study Program
PhD study topics for the academic year 2023/2024
Tutor: prof. PhDr. Břetislav Horyna, PhD.
Moral aspects of the free market in terms of environmental philosophyAnnotation:The student will elaborate the issue of moral characteristics of the free market from the point of view of modern critical theory of society with special reference to the concept of Axel Honneth. |
"Nature" and "Natural" in the so-called New MaterialismAnnotation:The student will analyze the foundations of one of the few contradictory sub-trends in the thinking of contemporary European philosophy, which is associated with the name of the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux and his concept of so-called correlationism, also called "speculative realism". At a first glance, it does not seem that a philosophy stating a correlationist circle of knowledge (understanding) and therefore requiring further stabilization of the cognitive subject would go any further in principle than, for example, Adorno's statement of the "salvation of philosophy" for modernity by a turn to the transcendental subject. Nevertheless, speculative realism is slowly turning into a broad movement in contemporary continental philosophy, and there is not only a growing number of its adherents, but also a growing number of commentaries on Meillassoux's hitherto major work, After Finitude. A Debate on the Necessity of Contingency and other texts that develop the issues he thematizes. The task of this thesis will therefore include a mapping of this debate. |
History of the Young Hegelians 1835-1845Annotation:The student will work through the problematic history of Neo-Hegelianism with emphasis on the impulses that have persisted in the history of European philosophy to the present. |
Democracy adjourned: uncertainty as a characteristic of society in an environmental crisisAnnotation:The student will elaborate a problem analysis of the concept of political democracy in the epoch of the Anthropocene with reference to the tradition of critical theory of society and the theory of post-democracy, aversive democracy, simulation democracy and other ways of processing the problem of democracy. |
Concept of phenomenological anthropology in Hans Blumenberg's workAnnotation:The student will work through the main works of Hans Blumenberg with a focus on his methodology of historical and phenomenological anthropology. It will explain how this method conditioned Blumenberg's conception of modernity, myth, and metaphor. |
Tutor: Mgr. Róbert Karul, PhD.
The absurd in contemporary philosophy: neutrality, absence of meaning, hopelessness, tragedyAnnotation:In the French philosophical tradition, the theme of the absurd is still present today and has been introduced by phenomenological thinkers such as E. Levinas (the notion of il y a) and M. Blachot (the notion of neutrality). More recently, this style of thought has been revived by thinkers such as A. Comte-Sponville (the notion of hopelessness), Clément Rosset (idiocy) and Marcel Conche (the tra-gic), among others. However, similar elements can also be traced in thinkers who do not make them the centre of their thought (despair in C. Romano). It will be an examination of conceptions of this tendency, with the intention of presenting an interpretation of the primarily negatively connoted terms that will serve as a starting point for a "positive" understanding of them (tragic wisdom in Conche is an example). |
Tutor: Mgr. Miloš Kosterec, PhD.
Analysis of justifications of modal claims and its application in evaluation of thought experimentsAnnotation:The purpose of many thought experiments is to defend or to put doubt on some modal claim. The aim is to devise a topology of modal claims, their justifications as well as selected relevant relations among these. This analysis will be furthermore applied in considerations about the (conditions of) correctness of different types of thought experiments known from particular specialized literature. |
Moral responsibilityAnnotation:Debates around Moral Responsibility belong among the most widespread and relevant in philosophy. The aim is to present novel arguments within the dichotomies in existing debates about moral responsibility and/or to present arguments for new ways of focusing on relevant problems. The use of analytic methods should lead to a model of arguments within a formal system. |
Tutor: prof. Dr. Phil. Martin Muránsky, PhD.
The concept of ethics of equal respect and human rightsAnnotation:The "forgotten" concept of the ethics of equal respect as a normative starting point in relation to the indivisibility of human rights is a key but still under-analysed problem. The reflection on this relationship will be in two perspectives: firstly, its anchoring in the principle of the relations of individual and collective autonomy, secondly, the elaboration of this normative starting point against the background of the ambivalent relationship of the right to property with the right to life. |
Tutor: doc. Mgr. Richard Sťahel, PhD.
The emergence and development of the idea of environmental democracy within political ecologyAnnotation:Political ecology as a discipline focused on the research of political, economic and social relations affecting the environment arose in the 1970s. As part of research into the determination of power relations by the state of the environment and their impact on the devastation of the environmental conditions of the existence of an organized human society, also started to take shape the idea of ecological, or environmental democracy. Democracy as a philosophical concept thus acquired a new aspect of meaning, which, however, underwent a dynamic development. The aim of the thesis is to map this development and analyze its relevance for environmental political philosophy. |
Philosophical background of the ecological civilization conceptAnnotation:The concept of ecological civilization originated in the 1980s. It was subsequently developed by Roy Morrison, who understands ecological civilization as the result of the transformation of real industrial democracies into ecological democracies that more account of citizens´ interests in maintaining an environment conductive to organized human society than industry interests in the availability of cheap natural resources. In the background of the concept of ecological civilization are several philosophical concepts – from political to ontological. The aim of work is to identify them and analyze the extent of their impact of the current form of the concept of ecological civilization. |
The concept of democracy in the context of environmental political philosophyAnnotation:The concept of environmental political philosophy points to the weaknesses and contradictions of contemporary real democracies. They are based on such concepts of man, society and economy that do not take into account the finitude of natural resources as well as the limited ability of the planetary system to absorb pollution caused by all human activities. Real constitutional democracies determined by industrialism and the imperial way of life are therefore unable to ensure the long-term sustainability of the socio-economic, let alone the environmental, conditions of their existence. Environmental political philosophy points out that the deteriorating social and environmental conditions of life on the planet in the climatic, demographic and economic regime of the Anthropocene lead to circumventing or violating the basic constitutional principles on which the legitimacy of contemporary constitutional democracies rests. The aim of the thesis is to identify and formulate the principles of the concept of environmental democracy, i.e. a concept that would on the one hand preserve the basic democratic constitutional principles and at the same time reconcile them with the current knowledge of the Earth sciences about the vulnerability of the planetary system. |
Tutor: Prof. h.c. Jon Stewart, PhD.
The Ideological influence of the Russian philosophical and political discourse of the 19th century on the thought of Ľudovít ŠtúrAnnotation:The doctoral thesis will be focused on the investigation of the philosophical influences from the Russian intellectual environment on the philosophical and political thinking of Slovak thinkers whose works shaped the nation-building process. The goal of the research would be focused on approaching the philosophical sources that fundamentally determined the perception of freedom on an individual level, its relationship to the idea of national equality, as well as the reflection of the philosophy of history by Štúr and his followers. The aim of the project would be a closer examination of those sources from representatives of Russian Slavophiles in particular (the works of Alexey Chomiakov, Konstantin Aksakov, Pavel V. Kirejevsky, Ivan Aksakov, Ivan V. Kirejevsky), whose ideas became part of the formation of the idea of Slavic mutuality and its subsequent modifications leading to free cooperation of national entities or even various forms of pan-Slavism. This research would also offer an opportunity for interdisciplinary cooperation between philosophy and related disciplines focused on issues of culture and political thought. |
Tutor: doc. Mgr. Jaroslava Vydrová, PhD.
Possibilities of phenomenology in anthropologyAnnotation:The possibilities of connection between phenomenology and philosophical anthropology are both historical-philosophical (Scheler and Plessner belonged to the circle of Husserl's disciples) and thematic (arising from the phenomenology of corporeality, perception, intersubjectivity, etc.). This implies the possibility of elaborating on this theme by tracing the productive intersections of phenomenological analysis on the one hand and raising anthropological questions on the other. This can be used more closely in the investigation of such phenomena as illness and health, care for the self, corporeality, expressivity, being in the world and with other people. This exploration also offers the possibility for interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy and related disciplines focusing on issues of culture, sociality or historicity. |
Philosophical-anthropological Analysis of Laughing and Crying (in the Context of Helmuth Plessner's Work)Annotation:The doctoral thesis will be based primarily on the philosophy of Helmuth Plessner, who addressed the topic of the laughter and crying expression in specific texts (especially in Laughing and Crying, Das Lächeln), as well as in the context of his contribution to the anthropology of sense, the theory of expression, and the analysis of corporeality. In his philosophical anthropology, Plessner brings a critical perspective to the contemporary and traditional philosophical and scientific discourse that has developed around this topic, and offers his own approach to thematising the modes of expression in question in their original course and the relation of man to his corporeality. |