("„Practical" Being: On Heidegger's Complete Concept of Being in Being and Time"). In: Lang, S. - Ulrichs, L. (eds.), Subjektivität und Autonomie. Praktische Selbstverhältnisse in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie.

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The study focuses on Heidegger's notion of being and ontology at the time of Being and Time. It is based primarily on Heidegger's lectures in the years 1927–1929, in which he developed the topics which he originally planned for, but in the end left unpublished in Being and Time, such as the part "Time and being", which came to form the systematic core of his ontology.

("Heidegger and Kant's Concept of World". In: Bacin, S. (ed.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Vol. 5.

The article deals with Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's concept of the world, developed in the period after Being and Time. It argues that one can demonstrate the extent to which Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's philosophy is systematically influenced by the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. The article hopes to determine more precisely the focus of Heidegger's philosophy in the period after Being and Time.

(David Hume: Dialogues on Natural Religion)

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Dialogues on natural religion are Hume's most important contribution to the philosophy of religion and one of the key modern texts in this field. The theme of the book are the theses of the so-called natural religion, which complement the principles and precepts of "revealed" religion. Through the medium of envisaged conversations between three educated friends, Hume examines the foundations of religious belief and the extent of its rational justification. He develops a critique of some of the traditional arguments for God's existence, especially of the argument from design, the detailed analysis of which takes up a large part of the text. In the work Hume also deals with other important traditional issues in philosophy of religion, among them the problem of evil in the world. Translation of the work is accompanied by a study of the translator ("Hume on God and religion"), explanatory notes.

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This book argues that the Cartesian mind has been widely misunderstood, in being typically treated as simply the subject of phenomenal consciousness, and ignoring its fundamentally intellectual character. The author argues that this interpretation has gone hand in hand with a misreading of Descartes' method of doubt which treats it as all-inclusive and universal in scope. In fact, the sceptical arguments of the First Meditation aim to lead the mind away from the senses and towards the intellectual 'notions' that the mind has within it, and which are never the subject of doubt. The author also places Descartes' concept of mind into the wider setting of his science of nature, arguing that Descartes wished to reveal a mental subject that would able to comprehend the new physics necessitated by Copernicus' heliocentrism.

In the paper I question some of the claims made by Professor Searle about external realism, a position I accept. I briefly sum up Searle's position, and then proceed to the mentioned critique. The particular target of my paper is Searle's claim that external realist is to shun commitment to any particular ontology. I also point out that Searle's external realism is in some respects difficult to disentangle from ontological constructivism, a position incompatible with external realism. The paper concludes with an apology for the idea of a "Privileged Conceptual Scheme" that Searle views as misguided.

Searle's reply online

The articles argues that with respect to the issue of causality we should distinguish between an 'early Hume' and a 'mature Hume'. In his early period, represented by The Treatise, Hume had not yet adopted the Newtonian active principles. In the mature period, however, represented in particular by The First Enquiry, his theory of causation has been transformed by a reception of Newton. This leads Hume to drop the condition of contiguity, which had excluded action-at-a-distance in The Treatise. It also leads him to allow real necessary connexions in nature though they are inaccessible to us, just as the real cause of gravitation was thought by the Newtonians to be unknowable for the human mind.

In: C. Cordner (ed.), Philosophy, Ethics and Common Humanity.

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The article notes that goodness, while a central ethical concern, receives virtually no attention from philosophical ethics. Its argument that this is no accident takes partly the form of historical examination of the creation of the concept of the ethical (or moral) by the Greeks, which focused on that which is subject to judgement, i.e. on intentional action or will-construed responsibility. Since goodness, unlike 'the good', does not have this structure (it can neither be directly sought nor does the one in whom it is present know that he 'has' it), it is argued that ethics cannot deal with it and so largely ignores it. The articles concludes with the suggestion that to do justice to goodness, indeed to value more generally, we need to re-think what it means to act and the manner in which our action relates to what is around us.

(Correspondence between Leo Thun and Alexis de Tocqueville (1835-1856)).

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Fořtová and Olšáková co-edited the volume, translated the texts and wrote the introductory study.

The notable Bohemian aristocrat Leo Thun (1811-1888) corresponded with Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), the greatest French political thinker of the 19th century, over the course of twenty years. The topics varied from general issues such as the birth of democracy in the modern world and the necessity of introducing the penitentiary system to Europe, to personal concerns of Leo Thun related to his political career. The text brings together the complete collection of the correspondence in both Czech and French with editorial notes.

It is traditionally assumed that there is only one theory of causality in Hume's writings. The article argues that we can distinguish between an early and a mature theory. It is further argued that the mature theory, strongly influenced by Newton's physics, accords with the New Hume sceptical realist) interpretation by asserting that real causal relations are not accessible to the human mind.