Farmers’ markets are a relatively recent phenomenon in Prague, Czechia. The first of them was opened in the autumn of 2009, but the real boom started in the spring/summer of 2010. The survey introduced in this paper is concerned with the study of alternative food networks and farmers’ markets. It offers the results of methodological triangulation based on: (1) the data obtained via the questionnaire survey, (2) market organizers’ reflections on the customer structure, motivation for shopping at farmers’ markets and (...) the question of social exclusivity of farmers’ markets in Prague as revealed in interviews, and (3) the field notes from the participant observation at the markets under study. The results show that farmers’ markets are emerging all around Prague in localities of different social status, so the poorer citizens are not necessarily excluded from the access to markets. The differences between markets, in terms of size, range of goods, and term seem to follow the inner city/hinterlands divide rather than the socio-spatial differentiation of the city. New consumer patterns clearly result from the cultural environment, specific context, and also from the different development path of the post-socialist consumer society. (shrink)

This article is based on a case study of a long-term public controversy over the construction of a highway bypass. Two principal variants of the bypass were proposed. One of them began gradually to appear preferable, increasingly attractive for experts, but remaining only on paper. In the meantime, however, the other variant became more realistic, pushed through mainly by local politicians and actually constructed. This article shows how purification of science from politics played a key role in the development and (...) ending of the case. Initial expertization of the case switched to its sharp politicization, when people got frustrated from protraction and indecisive evidence of accumulated expertise. This turned to be fatal for those who consistently staked everything on “pure facts.” This article concludes by outlining some general consequences of such a development for both democratic decision making and the political relevance of expertise. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the social situation of the Roma and poverty more broadly, to highlight the factors underpinning their lack of access to education and hence to jobs from which they derive income insecurity and worsen their living conditions, their poor health and finally, their poor contact with the majority. Theme of Roma poverty and their general social situation is very demanding in terms of finding the solution, since the large rate of Roma population is (...) unable to even minimally participate in social, economic, cultural and political life. I have picked a combined survey interview as a method for the empirical part of the article, by looking at various projects and literature. Scientific objectives of the article is to highlight the fact that in all areas affecting the way of life of Roma, including their discriminiation, the most influental one is the long-term segregation of the learning process, which is essential to their integration into an active lifestyle. I refer to the fact that the condition of education of Roma children depends mainly on the socio-economic enviroment from which they come from and which can be measured by various factors. As on of the factors in the education of the parents alone, other factors could be household equipment, monitoring the overall social, economic and cultural status of Roma pupils. In the conclusion of the article, I want to point out that a large number of research findings demonstrate that the dependence of education outcomes as students from their socio-economic enviroment suggests that the education system is no way meeting the requirements of a fair transfer of learning to all, according to their abilities and is just never obilizing the social equality in education. The Education Act and the related rules do not contain provisions that are aimed directly at Roma pupils. However, the general term "socially disadvantaged" enviroment is being used, that is defined primarly by poverty. However, many disadvantages faced by the Roa in all areas of life, often are not only subject to their financial circumstances. "Given that some portion of barriers stem from the approach of the majority population towards the Roma on the basis of their declared or credited ehtnicity, it is questionable whether the measures are based on the financial circumstances of families enough.". (shrink)

The article focuses on the philosophical and scientific dialogue between Vladimir Vernadsky and Pavel Florensky in the context of Russian philosophy. Florensky formulated his philosophy in the book The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, making a great impact on Vernadsky. The two philosophers exchanged their thoughts through letters. During the time of his imprisonment, Florensky wrote letters on scientific topics to his son Kirill, who worked with Vernadsky. Thus, Kirill Florensky became the point of contact between the two thinkers. (...) The present article aims to show the complementarity between Vernadsky’s and Florensky’s work with a particular emphasis on their conception of noosphere-pneumatosphere connected with Plato’s methaphysics, which Florensky interpreted as the world of the Truth or absolute reality. Through investigating Vernadsky’s and Florensky’s letters and diaries and comparing their conceptions of noosphere and pneumatosphere, as well as their interpretation of reality in their writings, it is possible to determine influences of the concepts important for Russian religious philosophers, such as a tendency towards wholeness and intuition. The first part of the article examines Vernadsky in relation to Russian idealists, the second part of the article is focused on the relationship between Vernadsky and Florensky, and the third on the concepts of noosphere, pneumatosphere, and the concept of reality (living being) — absolute reality (Truth). Through these three steps, the complementarity of Vernadsky’s and Florensky’s interpretations are illustrated. Their interpretations are not contradictory because while Vernadsky dealt with Earth’s reality and its evolution, and Florensky focused on the metaphysical world, both were interested in the evolution of the biosphere-noosphere/pneumatosphere through the activity of man. The article is the first study in English focused on the scientific and religious-philosophical interaction between Vernadsky and Florensky. (shrink)

Foucault is critical of the tendency to reduce all social and political problems according to predetermined ends and verifiable procedures. For Foucault, philosophical activity is a condition of possibility for the articulation of the question of the self. Inspired by his work on the desiring subject, Foucault begins to explore the ethical and political implications of self-care for modern day concerns. He presents an account of self-care that centres on developing an attitude that questions the personal relationship to truth, and (...) puts to test those ideas and truths held most dearly. Processes of self-care evaluate the consistency between those truths a person regards as necessary and a person’s actions in the world. Interested in the ways in which people see themselves as subjects, Foucault directs his attention to the connection between systems of knowledge, power, and practices of the self. Crucial to Foucault’s process is the recognition that the self-subject is not given and does not have ontological precedence, and that subjectivity is transformable. By finding the lines and fractures in external and internal modes of objectification Foucault hopes to open up the space of freedom to bring about transformative events. The care of the self serves as a form of critique and resistance where it is both a way of living and acting in the world, and a critical response to a particular time and place. (shrink)

The paper describes the work of the Czech physician Ctibor Bezděk and his relation to the Russian philosopher Nikolai Lossky. The study examines Bezděk’s ethical theories (i.e. ‘ethicotherapy’) which he tried to incorporate into Medicine and focuses particularly on the role of intuition in Bezděk’s approach to Medicine, comparing it with the concepts of intuition and of substantival agents elaborated by Lossky. Lossky’s theories about disease and healing influenced several physicians and psychiatrists, and his work also received support from T.G. (...) Masaryk. Although he has been included among the pioneers of psychotherapy, Bezděk still remains unknown in the Czech Republic. The present study aims to introduce Ctibor Bezděk and his contributions to a wider audience. (shrink)

This study, theoretically based on integrated threat and image theory, explored (1) the mental constructs produced by the Slovak majority in relation to cooperation with the Roma minority and (2) differences in thinking about different Roma demographic groups. In Slovakia, prejudice towards Roma people is a long-standing phenomenon. In this study there were 228 participants, mostly young adults, who produced 22 categories of associations, explored using content and network analyses. The frequency of category associations in the first and second research (...) group was mostly the same, but the distribution differed for the demographic groups considered by the third research group, which was asked to produce associations separately for each Roma demographic group. The largest difference measured was between integrated and segregated Roma people – the associations were mostly positive for the first and negative for the second. These results provide the first empirical exploration of cooperation intentions with Roma people in the Slovak context and suggestions are made for future discourse on Roma. (shrink)

The article is focused on the topic of how to practice philosophy and support creativity in kindergartens and elementary schools with the help of fairy tales, in particular with the help of the story of Pinocchio. Emphasis is placed on Lipman's activity of philosophy for children, which he tried to connect with Vygotsky's theories. The aim of the article is to show the importance of developing critical thinking in the form of dialogue in connection with creative thinking, which Gianni Rodari (...) focused on. Rodari was based on Vygotsky's theory of imagination as a process of the human mind, which is a characteristic of all human being. (shrink)

A wave of interest in Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault as bio-political thinkers was initiated by publication of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer. The intellectual connection of these two figures is, however, broader than their bio-political considerations. Arendt and Foucault both offer detailed accounts of an ethico-political self. Both Arendt’s and Foucault’s later work explores the meaning of living ethically and politically. By examining the relationship between self, ethics and politics, I suggest there are two general points of convergence in Arendt (...) and Foucault regarding the ethico-political self: a shared suspicion of ethical or political systems presented as universally applicable; the attempt to undermine prescriptive moral and political models by fostering a dynamic and critical self-relationship. In the shared attempt to develop a dynamic ethico-political attitude Arendt and Foucault present their respective alternatives to universally applicable moral and political structures, which both consider to be potentially dangerous. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 76-92, Spring 2022.

We draw on the phenomenon of caste-based discrimination in India and signaling theory to assess whether microfinance credit scores improve the odds of female micropreneurs from a lower caste receiving loans and whether visible business characteristics further improve the odds of receiving microfinance loans. In a sample of 3,144 female microfinance loan applicants at a female-focused microloan enterprise in India, females from a lower caste, relative to those from a higher caste, have lower odds of receiving loans when their credit (...) scores are below the mean. However, when females from a lower caste have credit scores higher than the mean, the odds of receiving a loan increase. The practical effect of size is small but meaningful. Loan applicants from a lower caste with a visible signal of business ability do not improve their chances of receiving a loan relative to those from a higher caste. (shrink)

The article treats the role of attention in Augustine’s analysis of sense perception, the notion of time, and the Trinitarian structure of the human mind. The term intentio covers a broad range of meanings in Augustine’s usage. Its most fundamental meaning is the life-giving presence of the soul in the body, intensified in attention’s being concentrated on a particular thing or experience; Augustine also uses the term attentio in this latter sense. According to his analysis of time, by way of (...) attention, the soul fixes the present in which the future passes into the past. Due to the intention of the soul, the form abstracted from an external object is both imprinted into the sense organ and retained in the memory in order to be, by intention again, recalled before the sight of mind. As “the intention of the will” or just “the will”, attention connects intellectual understanding with memory. In Augustine’s eyes, attention has a different quality depending on the object it is oriented to, and a different intensity, ranging from inattentive distraction to concentrated effort. (shrink)

Education and the support for creativity are some of the functions of the new medias. The users utilize a lot of e-tools to create products with varying art quality. Because of this new ability to create they, fallaciously, consider themselves – from their new positions of becoming artists - having also become art critics but they fail to understand the complexity of creative process. We intend to exemplify with the art of the American painter Cy Twombly, that some works of (...) art which seem to be easy to copy and therefore not worth enough are in fact a result of the author ́s erudition, talent, diligence and clear intention. Twombly ́s works are connected with topics such as sigh, ability to decipher, Apollonian and Dionysian principles and the dichotomy Eros/Thanatos. We will present the artist's original non-copiable way of taking inspiration from classical mytological stories and some interpretative approaches. (shrink)

Education and the support for creativity are some of the functions of the new medias. The users utilize a lot of e-tools to create products with varying art quality. Because of this new ability to create they, fallaciously, consider themselves – from their new positions of becoming artists - having also become art critics but they fail to understand the complexity of creative process. We intend to exemplify with the art of the American painter Cy Twombly, that some works of (...) art which seem to be easy to copy and therefore not worth enough are in fact a result of the author ́s erudition, talent, diligence and clear intention. Twombly ́s works are connected with topics such as sigh, ability to decipher, Apollonian and Dionysian principles and the dichotomy Eros/Thanatos. We will present the artist's original non-copiable way of taking inspiration from classical mytological stories and some interpretative approaches. (shrink)

The paper explores the possibilities of using applied qualitative research to help to achieve changes in the context of education. It presents three case studies: an evaluation of an educational software package which may be implemented nationally; an assessment of the impact of a 1:1 Technology Rich Learning Environment experimental project conducted in two Slovak elementary schools; and international comparative research on the curricula of psychology courses in secondary schools. The authors ask three questions: 1. does qualitative research have the (...) potential/resources/capacity to guide us in the process of making policy related decisions? 2. Does it have enough credibility in the eyes of the consumers—whether these are decision-makers themselves or a wider community that often plays a role in public decisions? 3. Could this type of work still count as academic inquiry? The discussion evolves around the reflection of the position of researchers in this type of research design, and the authors conclude that applied qualitative research could be the source of solid evidence for making decisions related to education—although this evidence is different to that provided by quantitative research. (shrink)

Plant cell culture systems have become an attractive and sustainable approach to produce high‐value and commercially significant metabolites under controlled conditions. Strategies involving elicitor supplementation into plant cell culture media are employed to mimic natural conditions for increasing the metabolite yield. Studies on nanoparticles (NPs) that have investigated elicitation of specialized metabolism have shown the potential of NPs to be a substitute for biotic elicitors such as phytohormones and microbial extracts. Customizable physicochemical characteristics allow the design of monodispersed‐, stimulus‐responsive‐, and (...) hormone‐carrying‐NPs of precise geometries to enhance their elicitation capabilities based on target metabolite/plant cell culture type. We contextualize advances in NP‐mediated elicitation, especially stimulation of specialized metabolic pathways, the underlying mechanisms, impacts on gene regulation, and NP‐associated cytotoxicity. The novelty of the concept lies in unleashing the potential of designer NPs to enhance yield, harness metabolites, and transform nanoelicitation from exploratory investigations to a commercially viable strategy. (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a more (...) closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

Danto, Arthur Coleman, 2021. Po konci umění: Současné umění a oblast mimo dějiny. Prel. Šárka Lojdová. Praha: Academia.

Education and the support for creativity are some of the functions of the new medias. The users utilize a lot of e-tools to create products with varying art quality. Because of this new ability to create they, fallaciously, consider themselves – from their new positions of becoming artists - having also become art critics but they fail to understand the complexity of creative process. We intend to exemplify with the art of the American painter Cy Twombly, that some works of (...) art which seem to be easy to copy and therefore not worth enough are in fact a result of the author´s erudition, talent, diligence and clear intention. Twombly´s works are connected with topics such as sigh, ability to decipher, Apollonian and Dionysian principles and the dichotomy Eros/Thanatos. We will present the artist's original non-copiable way of taking inspiration from classical mytological stories and some interpretative approaches. (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a more (...) closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a more (...) closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

Studie se zabývá utopickými úvahami brněnského augustiniána Františka Matouše Klácela (1808–1882), jejich zdroji a pokusy o uvedení do praxe a také možnými důvody, kvůli kterým své vize nedokázal realizovat tak, jak si předsevzal. Klácel v teoretických reflexích ideálního uspořádání lidské společnosti i při projektování návrhů utopických komunit (Svojanovů) čer­pal jednak z prací svých předchůdců, jež se snažili formulovat či uvést do praxe myšlenky sociální utopie (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Jednota bratrská, Komenský), z hlediska ontologického se ovšem opíral o svůj koncept vesměrnosti, jemuž (...) se věnoval od počátku čtyřicátých let až do konce života. (shrink)

ZAKARIA, F.. Obrana liberálního vzdělání. Praha: Academia. 127 s. ISBN 978-80-200-2717-7. Z anglického originálu In defence of a liberal education přeložil Jaroslav Veis.

ZAKARIA, F.. Obrana liberálního vzdělání. Praha: Academia. 127 s. ISBN 978-80-200-2717-7. Z anglického originálu In defence of a liberal education přeložil Jaroslav Veis.

ZAKARIA, F.. Obrana liberálního vzdělání. Praha: Academia. 127 s. ISBN 978-80-200-2717-7. Z anglického originálu In defence of a liberal education přeložil Jaroslav Veis.

Education and the support for creativity are some of the functions of the new medias. The users utilize a lot of e-tools to create products with varying art quality. Because of this new ability to create they, fallaciously, consider themselves – from their new positions of becoming artists - having also become art critics but they fail to understand the complexity of creative process. We intend to exemplify with the art of the American painter Cy Twombly, that some works of (...) art which seem to be easy to copy and therefore not worth enough are in fact a result of the author ́s erudition, talent, diligence and clear intention. Twombly ́s works are connected with topics such as sigh, ability to decipher, Apollonian and Dionysian principles and the dichotomy Eros/Thanatos. We will present the artist's original non-copiable way of taking inspiration from classical mytological stories and some interpretative approaches. (shrink)

Danto, Arthur Coleman, 2021. Po konci umění: Současné umění a oblast mimo dějiny. Prel. Šárka Lojdová. Praha: Academia.

ZAKARIA, F.. Obrana liberálního vzdělání. Praha: Academia. 127 s. ISBN 978-80-200-2717-7. Z anglického originálu In defence of a liberal education přeložil Jaroslav Veis.