Department of Environmental Philosophy

Characteristics

The department focuses on the philosophical investigation of problems related to the relationship between man and nature, and on the reflection of the causes and socio-political consequences of environmental degradation, pollution, and the climate crisis. It focuses on issues of environmental and climate justice, philosophical assumptions, and implications of the concepts of environmental law, natural resource rights, resettlement rights, as well as the concepts of anthropocene, capitalocene, sustainable retreat, zero or negative growth and ecological civilization. It examines the possibilities of formulating answers to the challenges facing society after exceeding the environmental limits of sustainability from the positions indicated by political ecology, social ecology, critical environmentalism, and other directions of environmental thinking.

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 philosophy

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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 Materialism

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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 1835-1845

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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 crisis

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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 work

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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: doc. Mgr. Richard Sťahel, PhD.

Philosophical background of the ecological civilization concept

Study program: 2.1.2. systematic philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava
Annotation:
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 philosophy

Study program: 2.1.2. systematic philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava
Annotation:
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.

The emergence and development of the idea of environmental democracy within political ecology

Study program: 2.1.3. history of philosophy * Study form: full-time/external * Faculty: Faculty of Arts, UPJS in Košice
Annotation:
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.

Contact

Institute of Philosophy SAS, v.v.i.
Klemensova 19
811 09 Bratislava 1
Slovak Republic
Tel.: +4212 5292 1215
E-mail: sekretariat.fiu@savba.sk
Home page

Address for correspondence:

Filozofický ústav SAV, v. v. i.
P. O. Box 3364
813 64 Bratislava
Slovak Republic

Journal Filozofia

Institute of Philosophy SAS, v.v.i.
Filozofia Editorial Office
Klemensova 19
811 09 Bratislava 1
Slovak Republic
Tel.: +4212 5292 1215
E-mail: filofilo@savba.sk
Home page

Address for correspondence:

Filozofický ústav SAV, v. v. i.
Filozofia Editorial Office
P. O. Box 3364
813 64 Bratislava
Slovak Republic

Journal Organon F

Institute of Philosophy SAS, v.v.i.
Organon F Editorial Office
Klemensova 19
811 09 Bratislava 1
Slovak Republic
Tel.: +4212 5292 1215
E-mail: organonf@gmail.com
Home page

Address for correspondence:

Filozofický ústav SAV, v. v. i.
Organon F Editorial Office
P. O. Box 3364
813 64 Bratislava
Slovak Republic