Annotations
| Nr. | Topic | Annotations |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Normativity of natural goods in contemporary natural law theories | Like any evaluation, a moral evaluation needs specific criterias on the basis of which it is implemented. Thus, these criterias allow evaluation. Natural law theories try to name and justify normative components that relate to all forms of human practice. For this reason, they are based on human nature and reveal fundamental and universal goods, which are ethically normative. These fundamentally natural goods represent the superior ethical set of criterias for the evaluation of overall human practice and social life. The aim of the future dissertation is not only to map the views of theorists of contemporary natural law approaches, but also to critically evaluate the relevance of their solutions. Subsequently, the author formulates and justifies their own position, highlighting the aspects in which they align with the examined theorists and the points on which they disagree. |
| 2. | Love as a virtue in modern ethical theories | Love is often taken as the noblest emotion, but its understanding as virtue is beginning to prevail in some modern ethical theories. The aim of the future dissertation is to map and critically evaluate the understanding of love between two extremes: love as emotion and as virtue. The future doctoral student chooses some representatives of modern ethical theories (eg Frankfurt, Singer, Stump, Foot, Spaemann) who thematize love as virtue. It maps and critically evaluates their views on understanding love as a virtue. Based on a critical analysis of these approaches, the future doctoral student will express, evaluate and compare the strengths and weaknesses of the researched authors on the problem. S/he then formulates and justifies his/her own opinion and shows what s/he agrees with in the solution of the given topic in the researched authors and in what s/he disagrees with them. |
| 3. | Naturalistic Explanations of Religion | A characteristic feature of religions is the "cognitive plus" which, according to them, comes from revelation, which goes beyond a full rational explanation, thus requiring an attitude of faith. Naturalistic explanations of religion are an amempt to explain and reduce the phenomenon of religion to a purely "natural phenomenon" with the help of the apparatus of natural and social sciences. The process of naturalization of religion can therefore also be understood as a process of its rationalization. The aim of the future dissertation is to map and critically evaluate the tendencies in the naturalization of religion among some selected authors. Based on a critical analysis of these approaches, the future doctoral student will express, evaluate and compare the strengths and weaknesses of the researched authors on the problem. He then formulates and justifies his/her own opinion and shows what s/he agrees with in the solution of the given topic in the researched authors and in what s/he disagrees with them. |
| 4. | Human Rights Issues from a Philosophical-Ethical Perspective | The issue of human rights is the subject of many disciplines, including philosophy and ethics. Their role lies primarily in conceptual and argumentative analysis, which are also relevant to the question of the morality of human rights. This dimension of human rights cannot be explored without clarifying key concepts such as the notions of human nature, human dignity, universality and relativity, duty and responsibility, etc. The aim of this dissertation is to reflect on the subject, with an emphasis on an interpretation that excludes its instrumental abuse and points to the roots of human rights, their moral presuppositions and coherent arguments, while respecting their binding nature. |
| 5. | Metaphilosophy of Neopragmatism (Between Naturalism and Interpretativism) | Metaphilosophy is a “philosophy of philosophy”. Its goal is to deal philosophically with the issue “What philosophy is? Each philosophical current has its own original answer to this question. Classical pragmatism prefers nonreductive naturalism respecting undeniable authority of science. Contemporary neopragmatism is based on this but accentuates the role of language and interpretation. It reopens the issue of the relation of nature and culture and raises anew the question of the relation between science and culture within this context. Why do we have philosophy in contemporary culture and what are its functions in relation to other cultural practices? Philosophy calls for a new conceptual self-reflection which wikk address these questions. Contemporary neopragmatism (in works of such philosophers as ako R. Rorty, H. Putnam, S. Cavell, R. Brandom, H. Price) offers productive and interesting metaphilosophical inspirations. Doctoral project on this theme shall investigate into neopragmatist conceptions of philosophy in a broad socio-cultural context and work out a selected one with its own critical contribution while it may draw on international collaboration of supervisor with current representatives of (neo)pragmatism in the world. |
| 6. | The Issue of Social Organization as the Key Problem of Social Philosophy (The Role of the State) | Human society is organized in various ways and is becoming more and more complex. Modern philosophers (T. Hobbes, J. Locke and others) have designed a thought fiction of socially non-organized humanity called “the state of nature” which had to forego each and every organized society (the state). Their method for creating such a society (or state) was a social contract which had to replace an ancient method of force (violence). This is where a liberal idea of the “rule of law” comes from. But society is also organized on a more fundamental economical level based on “market laws”. Even more fundamental is a level of moral principles of social organization. Nowadays the issue of socially organized humanity has become a global issue. In this context what is much problematized is the category of the state. On the one hand tendencies toward “etatism” are growing (“national state on the 1-st place”), and on the other the post-globalist tendencies (a “super-state” or supranational organizations). Likewise tendencies toward Neo-anarchist abolition of the state are not missing. The doctoral project shall focus on selected aspect of this problematics dealing with questions such as: What is the role of the state in social organization? How an institution of the state determines relations between people? Is an existence of the state inevitable for an organization of human societies? |
| 7. | Punishment as a philosophical-ethical and legal problem | The issue of punishment and its philosophical-ethical and legal relevance is very topical in the context of current discussions. The aim of the dissertation is to analyze and interpret punishment with an emphasis on the moral and legal aspects. The focus of the dissertation is the reconstruction of the arguments of the retributive (deontological) and consequentialist theories of punishment and the evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses with an emphasis on Hart's attempt to overcome the problems that these theories have. The aim of the dissertation is to argue in favor of the thesis that the issue of punishment requires coordination with the principles of the theory of justice, or rather a just society. |
| 8. | Reality in Fiction: Philosophical Aspects | The topic of the dissertation is to examine the philosophical aspects of the relationship between reality and fiction in relation to the way our language is used to create fictional stories. Fictional stories originate in the real world and are formulated in natural languages that have evolved in the real world. Some philosophical approaches to fiction claim that fictional stories are about a variant of the real world, modified in accordance with the statements contained in a fictional story. According to other approaches, fictional stories create fictional worlds. Are these approaches mutually incompatible? What are their explanatory and methodological advantages and disadvantages? Key topics that need to be addressed concern the truth conditions of statements regarding fictional objects and fictional stories, but also the explanation of the meaning and reference of proper names of fictional objects in different contexts of their use, namely in fictional, metafictional and parafictional use. |
| 9. | Philosophical problems of environmnetal humanities | Environmental humanities seeks to integrate humanities and social science research into the causes and consequences of environmental devastation. To a large extent, it relies on environmental philosophy, or rather the problem of the relationship between man and nature, which is formulated from many perspectives in environmental philosophy. Thus, many methodological and argumentative problems of environmental philosophy are transferred to environmental humanities, which complicates the formation of the methodology of environmental humanities. The work aims to identify and analyze those concepts of environmental philosophy that play a decisive role in the formation of environmental humanities. |
| 10. | The influence of the concept of the Anthropocene on the philosophical theory of democracy | The concept of the Anthropocene points out that even political subjects are ultimately dependent on bio-geo-chemical flows of material on a planetary scale. However, pre-Anthropocene concepts of democracy do not take this fact into account and at the same time work mainly with territorially defined entities, referred to as states. However, few of the industrialized states are able to reproduce their material and political existence only from the resources available to them within the internationally recognized borders of their territory. States must therefore secure the resources for their reproduction, as well as the sinks for emissions and other waste produced by this reproduction, outside their territory. This is done mainly by power-based, i.e. undemocratic means and methods, which in fact allow highly industrialized states to live at the expense of others. The aim of the work is to identify and analyze the influence that these phenomena have on the theory of democracy. |
| 11. | The Dynamics of Negation in Social Conflict | The phenomena of conflict and enmity are traditionally conceived of as undesirable, temporary and derived. The aim of the research is to continue a minority stream of thinking and explore these phenomena as constitutive parts of the composition of social relations. Fundamental oppositions of enmity and friendship, of that which is alien and that which is our own, can be understood as hierarchical and power-based structures. Simultaneously, they are, however, a necessary precondition for our orientation in the social world. By means of the movement of dialectical negation they represent the basis for creation and development of social identity. |
| 12. | Modal logics and contextual reasoning | In the thesis the student will focus on the philosophical and mathematical investigations into non-classical logics that can be used to analyze the syntactic and semantic behavior of modal notions in specific contexts, such as deontic reasoning, temporal reasoning, epistemic reasoning and doxastic reasoning. |
| 13. | Normative reasoning and applications | This research topic concerns the analysis of fundamental notions involved in everyday problems of normative reasoning, including ethical rules, moral values, deterministic vs. non-deterministic systems and theories of action. Moreover, it concerns the development of logical and computational tools for assisted reasoning in the normative domain, based on a formal representation of those notions. |
| 14. | Phenomenological analysis of passivity | The goal of the dissertation will be to explore the issues of passivity, attention, and the capacity of recognition based on the phenomenological analysis elaborated by Edmund Husserl (in the relevant texts of Husserliana). The thesis will trace these concepts in analyses of passive syntheses and constitutions, how are they constituted by the pre-reflective givenness of the world that is part of subjectivity. This theme is also presented, for example, by P. Ricœur on the basis of Husserl's elaboration of the concept of the life-world, which figures as a background that modifies subjective acts. This topic has also been addressed by other phenomenologists, such as A. J. Steinbock, D. Zahavi and others. The elaboration of the dissertation presupposes knowledge of phenomenological philosophy and the ability to work with German primary sources. |
| 15. | Phenomenological analysis of literary work | The dissertation will focus on the possibilities of using a phenomenological approach in the analysis of a literary text and, within this, on the analysis of imagination, attitude, perception, intentionality, the work of art, etc. This area of investigation is based on Husserl's phenomenology and is also developed in the works of several phenomenologists and literary scholars (M. Heidegger, M. Merleau-Ponty, P. Ricœur, R. Ingarden, J. Patočka, Z. Mathauser, F. Matejov and others), on whom the thesis can also selectively draw. The elaboration of the dissertation presupposes knowledge of phenomenological philosophy and the ability to work with German primary sources. |
| 16. | Control and responsibility in the context of intelligent technologies | The control over intelligent technologies is a complex phenomenon that leads to several difficult questions, challenges, and problems: are we destined to lose the control over intelligent technologies? Who should have control, and which form of control they should have? Which form of control is morally acceptable? How does the problem of responsibility relate to problems of control in the context of intelligent technologies? Does it make sense to speak of responsible control over intelligent technologies? The thesis will provide answers to these questions. |
| 17. | Artificial intelligence and gaps in positive responsibility | According to some researchers, intelligent technologies lead to gaps in responsibility, others deny it. The research in this area has been focused primarily on responsibility for negative impact of artificial intelligence. The thesis will explore the terrain of responsibility for positive impact of artificial intelligence. It will also formulate solutions to any responsibility gaps that might appear in this area. |