The paper sheds light on the way of the motif of universalism has been articulated in some philosophical conceptions. While within the Kantian tradition universalism is related to the formalism, the material value ethics aims at establishing contextual ('material') a priori, which opens up already a hierarchic order on emotional level. In the last three decades of the 20th century, however, we witnessed an attempt of a new formal and universalistic conception of the grounds of ethics, especially in the discursive ethics of J. Habermas. The contextual questions concerning the meanings of values were also reformulated in various conceptions of the ecological ethics. In the latter the nature, and living 'non-human' creatures were included into the sphere of the ethically and morally relevant. The conception of discursive ethics is considered as a reasonably grounded one. In the controversy between biocentrism and anthropocentrism it plays the role of 'methodological' and 'purified' anthropocentrism.
The paper deals with several aspects of Patocka's reflections on the role and mission of intellectuals in times, when science becomes 'the central productive power' and when the self-identifications of philosophy and philosophers become necessary. These requirements are due to various past and present 'shakes' (e.g. the extraordinary experience of participating in the WW I, which make the sense of human life problematic. According to the author, there is no unambiguous answer to the question: How the intellectual as a 'possessor of reason' is related to the intellectual as a 'spiritual being'? In the first term he finds Kantian motifs working (especially differentiating between 'Vernunft' and 'Verstand'); as for the second term, which is a more emphatic expression of distancing oneself from the obviousness of the facticity, the motifs are Platonic. In the author's view by his engagement in the Charta 77 movement Patocka has overcome 'Heraclitean-Platonic' distance between a philosopher and his townsmen, and incorporated his general principles into the postulates with strong moral accent.
V. Hosle's most important philosophical contribution is in his systematic attempt at grasping the philosophical problems, especially ontological, axiological and ecological ones, as one whole. The author examines several of these problems, especially with regard to the universalistic conception of ethics and the relationship between nature and spirit as manifested in the particular spheres of Hosles's philosophical concern: his conception of the ecological crisis as a metaphysical one, the meaning of natural law, the question of collective indentities etc. In conclusion the author outlines his vision of an ethics for the 21st century including its political dimension.
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