Philosophy & History of Philosophy (e-books)

E-book

Ján Hreško

This teaching guide is intended for teachers and instructors who are introducing new readers to Dante’s Divine Comedy, in particular the first cantica, Inferno, offering support and a grounding in the cultural background of one of the most important works of European medieval literature. Rather than forming yet another academic contribution to the study of Dante and his work, the guide focuses on using a guided seminar reading method within study groups and fostering meaningful discussions about the central themes and issues of the Inferno. Under the guidance of a teacher, students are encouraged to engage actively with the motifs and moral universe of this classic literary work – a primary source that cannot be replaced by any retelling. The proposed interpretations draw on established scholarly commentaries to deepen the readers’ understanding of the text, and each lesson is accompanied by a selected bibliography. The guide includes thematic introductions presenting Dante Alighieri as both author and protagonist within the Divine Comedy. It also offers carefully selected questions designed to foster textual comprehension and stimulate discussion during seminar readings of selected cantos of the Inferno. In addition, the publication includes special lessons on associated literary and artistic works. The guide features a wealth of original illustrations and an extensive range of visual materials. The course thus builds upon the traditional practice of seminar-based readings of works by the great authors, an approach which continues to form part of the curriculum at many liberal arts colleges, by integrating innovative techniques into this established educational method.

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E-book

Kristína Bosáková

The textbook for the course of Philosophical Anthropology should help the students of philosophy in major subject as much as of philosophy as minor in combination with other study programs in social sciences and STEM disciplines, to develop their own ideas and opinions about the question of human being in the philosophy. Its aim is to make a short introduction into the field of philosophical anthropology and to educate the students in the most important topics of the discipline.

Every chapter consist of the theoretical part and of the practical analysis of the text, which is followed by three questions at the end of each chapter. Students, who will later become the philosophy teachers, shall learn how to discuss and teach several topics from the philosophical anthropology in their future classes. Therefore, the textbook is suitable as much for the pedagogical as for the non-pedagogical study programs.

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E-book

Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

The fifth volume of Doctoral Miscellanea was created as a conference proceedings, returning to the original idea of the entire project: to establish a publication space for contributions from emerging scientists.

The first two issues of Doctoral Miscellanea consisted of outputs from departmental seminars, which involved internal discussions. Compared to direct publication, it proved more beneficial for doctoral students to verify their initial research results in multiple stages and present them in diverse ways (reaching more listeners and readers). The length of the texts in the first two issues was adapted to the duration of the presentations, but this practice was slightly disrupted by the omission of seminars in previous issues. In the current issue, the scope of the studies is somewhat more uniform.

An added value of the fifth volume was the meeting of all contributors at a joint conference, the Autumn School for Doctoral Students of the Faculty of Arts at UPJŠ in Košice, which took place on October 17, 2018, and October 18, 2018, in Danišovce.

We believe that this unique experience—often the first for many—of actively presenting at a scientific event could contribute to a better final version of the submitted contributions. At the same time, it allowed doctoral students to broaden their horizons within the humanities and social sciences, at least within the scope of the currently addressed dissertation research.

Lukáš Šutor

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E-book

Martin Škára

Philosophy is interwoven throughout its history with several principles that bring light and order to this kind of thinking, whether it is a systematic or a non-systematic form of philosophizing.

Each of the principles represents in its own way the origin (ἀρχή) of all deductive reasoning, but not all philosophical statements and conceptions are obliged to proceed in the same way, for not all philosophical statements and conceptions are calculus. Actually, such a form of rationalist philosophizing is really a minority in the history of philosophy. But in spite of its minority presence, it will always attract attention to some extent, whether by becoming a pillar of thought itself and finding a permanent place in its foundations, or by becoming an indispensable mainstay of philosophical reasoning. In fact, there are not many principles in the history of philosophical thought.

The state of affairs is primarily due to the heterogeneous and in many cases irrationalist nature of philosophical thinking.

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E-book

Vladimír Leško - Zlatica Plašienková (eds.)

Philosophical Proceedings Kant in the Contexts of Husserl's and Heidegger's Philosophy is a presentation of the results of the Second International Philosophical Conference, which took place on November 5-7, 2008 at the UPJŠ in Košice.

The conference was prepared by the Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, UPJŠ in very close cooperation with the Slovak Philosophical Association at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. The structure of the presented proceedings was divided into three basic parts. The first part contains the papers that were presented at the conference and constitute a crucial part of the content of our proceedings. The individual papers are arranged in the order in which they were presented at the conference. The second part of the proceedings contains the speeches from the inauguration ceremony of the award of the honorary title of Doctor honoris causa to Milan Sobotka and Teodor Münz. In the third part, a photo-documentation is published in which the ceremonial academic act of conferring the honorary degree of Doctor honoris causa is captured. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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E-book

Mária Mičaninová

Scholars whose works constitute medieval philosophy were active as theologians, jurists, physicians, and sometimes even poets. Among them, there is hardly anyone who could be described exclusively as a philosopher.

For theologians and (religious) jurists, the primary source of their philosophical reflection was the Bible or the Qur’an. The second source was the philosophical heritage of the preceding antiquity, in which the figure of Aristotle and his commentators dominated. The Peripatetic legacy was complemented by followers of Plato in the long line of so-called Neoplatonic philosophy (e.g., Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus), which in its beginnings developed within the environment of Hellenistic schools.

It is therefore not surprising that the main philosophical problem for medieval scholars was the relationship between theology and philosophy, or faith and reason, and, consequently, the relationship between theology and metaphysics. In the context of Christian thought, this was already discussed in the 2nd century, when some Church Fathers questioned the value of secular learning for those to whom the truth had been revealed by God.

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E-book

Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

Contributions in the field of psychology address current issues such as normative beliefs and attitudes regarding alcohol consumption, the characteristics of loneliness, questions of pupil personality and the perception of teachers’ interaction styles. They also consider hyperexcitability (excessive psychological excitability), research theorems on injustice, and fundamental concepts and their theoretical connections in the field of self-regulation research within the context of executive functions.

In philosophy, the authors focus on selected aspects of works belonging to major currents of world philosophy (Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Plotinus, Descartes, Patočka).

In literary studies (Slovak studies), the topics include modeling the theme of death in prose texts, the depiction of technological progress in space science fiction films, and the translation work of K. Strmeň, Návštevy (Anthology of World Lyric Poetry).

In the field of social work, the authors present contributions on current trends in preventing burnout syndrome in helping professions, the use of logotherapy in foster care, certain factors enabling the emergence, development, and spread of socially pathological phenomena (“cyberbullying”), religiosity and the value of human life, and an empirical analysis of the competencies of social workers in institutional care for people with intellectual disabilities.

The political science contribution analyzes selected institutions and documents within the European system of human rights protection, while the British and American studies paper examines the relationship between metaphor and metonymy in the interpretation of the meaning of new English compounds.

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