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Goethe's Science of Living Nature
de Vries, Wiert-Sebastiaan Bavo ; Komárek, Stanislav (advisor) ; Bouzek, Jan (referee) ; Janko, Jan (referee)
Goethe's science of living nature - About the implicit Philosophical basics in the scientific studies of J.W. von Goethe This study explains and elaborates the basic philosophical concepts in Goethe's biological scientific studies. To explain the implicit philosophical concepts of Goethe's biological research, his ideas in the field of botany and zoology are presented. Important concepts like the Urpflanze (the idea of plant) and the Urtier (the idea of animal), and the concepts of the growing process of annual plants as shown in Goethe's the Metamorphosis of Plants (1790) are discussed. Also the method of Goethe's natural science is considered. To understand Goethe's position in the tradition of Western Philosophy and the Natural Sciences, the main steps in their history and development are described. These moments in the history tend to another view on nature than his. Goethe's scientific studies could be seen as an answer to the two questions of the literary figure of Faust (a request for essential knowledge of nature and for a qualitative method of research). Goethe's way of thinking about nature is also closely linked with the classic Greek philosophers. In Goethe's view of nature we can thus see a synthesis of main thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. At the end of the study the fundaments of a...
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Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) and his Influence on the Natural Philosophy in the Czech Lands
Lelková, Iva ; Horský, Jan (advisor) ; Hermann, Tomáš (referee) ; Janko, Jan (referee)
Resumé: The dissertation deals with various layers of influence that Athanasius Kircher and his work had on the development of natural philosophy in the Czech lands around the half of the seventeenth century. It is possible to observe one such layer of this influence in his correspondence with the Czech lands, which often had patronage seeking character but was also a source of natural philosophic knowledge, observations and interests. Besides the correspondence influence, a diachronic influence and changing evaluation of Athnasius Kircher's work in the course of time is explored in one chapter. Another chapter introduces his own autobiography, which provides evidence of Kircher's conscious effort to shape the opinion of his person and his work to be made by his contemporaries and next generation of scholars. The last layer of influence being in focus of this work regards the influence of ideas based on an analogy between the movement of sea waters and movement of fluids in human body. Kircher's ideas on geocosmos expressed in his Mundus subterraneus (1664-1665) and Iter extaticum II (1657) are compared with the work of his correspondent, physician from Wroclaw and editor of the first medicine journal, Philipp Jacob Sachs von Löwenheim's Oceanus macro-microcosmicus (1664). Sachs reflects William Harvey's...
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German Technical University in Prague 1938 - 1945
Josefovičová, Milena ; Míšková, Alena (advisor) ; Janko, Jan (referee) ; Kaiserová, Kristina (referee)
The German Technical University in Prague 1938-1945 Investigation into the history of the Prague German Technical University broadens our knowledge not only of higher education, but also of the standing and education of the German population on Czech territory. Technical education, thought and inventiveness as phenomena of the industrial revolution gradually increase in importance with regard to overall social development. The 1938-1945 period, fundamentally different from previous periods, marked by Munich, the occupation, the war, the tragic culmination of Czech-German relations, came to be an inglorious concluding chapter to the existence of the Prague German Technical University, which began in 1806. The development of institutes of higher technical education within the Third Reich forms an important context for this research. This is where historiography first gets to grips with the complex of associated questions, from the privileging of technical subjects by the Nazi regime to the employment of technical elites and their participation in military research. The proposition that Nazism was hostile towards science leads on to further considerations, such as the place of technical science and technical colleges in the Third Reich, the role which they played and the results achieved by Nazi...
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Memoirs and Other Archival Documents
Janko, Jan
The paper tries to evaluate memoirs of outstanding scientists and technicians as a source for history of their disciplines and communities. Memoirs and memories give often otherwise not recorded details and insights, nevertheless their necessary subjective presentation of the matter requires a cautious exploit. As a main problem the author considers the gap between the time of the course of events described and the time of writing. It is also shown in this context how the aims of celebration in the obituaries and similar commemorative items weakens their value for the further work.
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The Czech nation and foreign scholarship
Janko, Jan
Paper gives an analysis of the views of leading Czech scholars on the events of 1945. Forensic expert F. Hájek justified the transfer of the German population on the basis of eugenic theories, physician K. Hynek and entomologist J. Obenberger glorified Russia, physicist B. Hostinský attacked theory of relativity and quantum physics on grounds of their German roots.
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The Decline of Mitchurinist Biology in the Czech Lands
Janko, Jan
The leading representatives of Czech biology I. Málek, M. Hašek and F. Herčík abandoned their support for Lyssenkoism to the end of the fifties. The change was perceived as very hard namely by I. Málek, who published many apologetic books and papers at the time. Elder geneticists J. Kříženecký and B. Sekla confirmed their negative approach to Lyssenkoism, while the president of Czechoslovak Agricultural Academy defended Mitchurinist biology as a for the practice favorable doctrine and discipline.
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