About us
The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, a publicly funded non-university research institution, conducts interdisciplinary research in key areas of philosophy and related humanities. The Institute is the largest humanities institute affiliated with the Czech Academy of Sciences. It subscribes to the principles of open science, non-discriminatory policies and good practices in line with European standards. The Institute is currently divided into twelve research units (a list of these units, as well as information about the overall structure of the Institute, can be found in the organizational schemes of the Institute and its component parts). These scholarly units focus on the three main research areas:
1) Contemporary issues of philosophy and philosophical aspects of related scholarly disciplines (the Department of Analytic Philosophy – including the Centre for Formal Epistemology; the Department of Logic; the Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy; the Department for the Study of Modern Rationality; the Centre for Global Studies; and the Centre for Science, Technology, and Society Studies).
2) The history of European and Czech philosophical thought (the Department for the Study of Ancient and Medieval Thought; the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History; Jan Patočka Archive; the Department for the Study of Modern Czech Philosophy).
3) Selected topics from related humanities, especially classics and medieval studies (the Centre for Classical Studies and two joint centres with Charles University: the Centre for Medieval Studies, and the Centre for Biblical Studies whose researchers work within the Centre for Classical Studies).
The Institute is an active member of the international philosophical community: we participate in several COST projects, regularly win multilateral and national grants, and build international teams that apply for Twinning initiatives and European grants. Every year a number of foreign researchers carry out research at the Institute. The Institute introduces contemporary philosophical findings and inquiries into the Czech national context, thereby enriching the national culture and intellectual discourse. It also explores and develops the teachings of distinguished thinkers in Czech and Central European history. Systematic efforts are made to apply the philosophical knowledge in practical fields (especially in contemporary applied ethics) and to interact in interdisciplinary projects of various kinds. The results of researchers' work include scholarly books and articles, academic conferences, colloquia, and lectures. We are engaged in long-term editorial work on key works in Czech studies and various other intellectual traditions as well as preparations of multi-volume dictionaries and synthetic works. We are also active in the domain of digital humanities, contributing to large infrastructure databases in the DARIAH-EU network and its Czech nod CLARIAH.CZ.
The Institute of Philosophy closely cooperates with universities and other research institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad. Together with its partner universities, it oversees doctoral studies in four areas, which enable students to make use of the research infrastructure of the Institute and to work with our researchers as academic advisors.
The Institute publishes nine scholarly journals (including the most prominent national philosophy journal Filosofický časopis [the Philosophical Journal] and the long running classics journal Listy filologické [Folia filologica]), several of which are intended for the international audience, and are abstracted/indexed in scholarly databases such as Scopus, Web of Science etc. It also houses two book publishers: Filosofia and OIKOYMENH. Filosofia publishes original works in philosophy and the humanities by Czech researchers, as well as Czech translations of significant philosophical texts. In 2017 the Institute joined forces with the established publishing house OIKOYMENH that started as an underground establishment during the “normalization” period of the 1970s and has a long tradition of reviving Czech intellectual life. Its output concentrates primarily on translations of classical works and contemporary contributions in the continental tradition. Each of the publishing houses produces some 30 books per year.
The Institute organizes international and domestic academic conferences, workshops, lectures, and seminars. In recent years, several major international events have been organized by the Institute, including Performance Philosophy, Via Benedictina, Franz Brentano’s Legacy in Prague, and the Congress on Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science and Technology. The internationally significant conferences organised annually by the Institute include LOGICA, Philosophy and Social Science, and the Ernst Mach Workshop.
The Institute of Philosophy’s library, which is open to the public, houses a specialized collection of more than 110,000 volumes at two different sites. It also offers full-text and bibliographic databases, e-books and e-journals. The Institute also organizes educational and popularizing events intended for the general public, including science fairs, open houses, and summer schools in philosophy, classics, and medieval studies.
The Foundation Deed of the Institute
