Aristotle’s notion of substance presents various problems of interpretation. Many interpreters focus mainly at the notion of primary substance, especially with regard to the difference between how Aristotle defines it in Metaphysics VII and in the Categories. The present study aims at confirming mutual compatibility of these texts and touches also the problem of knowability of the primary substance. Translation: Lukáš Novák.

Plato did not write any systematic essay on man. The analysis of a human being as such was not among his primary interests. It was rather the relationship between the man and the society and the world. Regardless to the Plato’s fragmentary statements about man, his anthropology can be identified. The paper gives an outline of Plato’s vision of man on the basis of his dialogues in the light of corresponding commentaries. This enables him to show the validity of Platonian (...) ideas for contemporary philosophical anthropology. According to the author this validity consists in the resolution of he question of human dignity, as well as in putting stress on the ethical dimension of politics and economy. (shrink)

The experience of human fragility and factual human failing found its response also in the writings of Paul Ricœur. The result of his reflecting on this issue is the corres-ponding philosophical concept answering the question of the possible failing from the perspective of the intrinsic structure of humans. The problem of human failing is discussed on the background of the fundamental question of philosophical anthropology: „What is human being?“ The analysis of the possible failing shows, that a human being is (...) a permanent attempt at a mediation of his structural disproportion between finality and infinity in the spheres of knowing, activity and feeling. Paradoxically, failing confirms the priority of being, truth and the good of human existence as opposed to nothingness, error and evil. (shrink)