PAIDEIA: PHILOSOPHICAL E-JOURNAL OF CHARLES UNIVERSITY

Editorial

2025-03-01T12:32:16+01:00

Dear readers,

we present the second issue of the XIX^th volume of the e-journal PAIDEIA.

Readers will find in it the completion of an extensive study by Adéla Dluhošová on autism from the point of view of hermeneutics. A very current and discussed topic was prepared by Martina Máchová, who deals with the problematic of transgender youth. The author’s focus on bioethics and the philosophy of sexuality and gender provides an interesting and currently relevant overlap for the philosophy of education. Despite its larger scope, we have chosen to publish the text in one issue. Zuzana Svobodová has provided us with a review article of the correspondence between Erazim Kohák and Karel Skalický, and the issue concludes with an essay focusing on the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin by Aneta Fodorová.

A way out of the crisis for the ‘new’ lost generation Y – Ἀκάδημος τελευτής in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Le Phenomene Humain

2025-03-01T12:43:12+01:00

A way out of the crisis for the ‘new’ lost generation Y – Ἀκάδημος τελευτής in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Le Phenomene Humain. – Generation Y, often referred to in the media as the new lost generation, suffers from an existential crisis, a crisis of meaning and environmental grief. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s work Le Phenomene Humain, by synthesizing evolutionary theory and Christian teleology, opens the way to the ‘Ἀκάδημος τελευτής’ (the grove of meaning), accessible even to the generally atheistic or vaguely theistic generation. Y raised in the 1990s, and thus offers a possible way out of the aforementioned crisis.

Autistic traits from a hermeneutic position II.

2025-03-01T12:34:33+01:00

Autistic traits from a hermeneutic position II. – The current biological-reductive naming of autism as a pervasive developmental disorder contributes to the stigmatizing perception of autism. Last but not least, it can complicate the path to a positive identity for people with autism, as more people with ASD tend to take language literally. The article searches for the cause of this way of perceiving the neurodiversity of a person, looking for ways to better acceptance and self-acceptance of people with ASD. Autistic spectrum disorders require a holistic hermeneutic approach. People with this nature enrich society, at the same time, misunderstanding these differences can lead to unnecessary traumatization or contribute to the development of perverse variants of autism. Latent, less pronounced, but all the more numerous in society, autistic traits that more people show also deserve attention. Some philosophers describe the symptoms of autistic traits, point out the difference in the overall structure of such a form of humanity and come to terms with it, even if they name the given phenomenon in a different way.

The issue of transgender adolescents

2025-03-01T12:37:24+01:00

The issue of transgender adolescents. – Gender identity is one of the basic innate characteristics of an individual. The number of children and adolescents who express their discrepancy with their biological sex is still growing, not only in the Czech Republic, and therefore we can assume that we will meet transgender people increasingly often. Children and adolescents are a very risky group in terms of accepting gender identity. The freedom of being and the conquest of an authentic existence are important components of life, and therefore it is important these young people are accepted by their environment, especially when they are struggling with the problem of their gender identity or the search for its expression. On the other hand, it is important to be aware of an extremely complicated period of maturation in this context. Care must be taken to make the right decisions that will aﬀect the entire following life of the individual.

The goal of the work is to provide an insight into this issue and to help clarify the situation regarding transgender people and at the same time not to create a false impression that the problems that children and adolescents may face can be solved by changing gender. Furthermore, the aim is to contribute to the issue by proposing to increase resources (professional texts, interdisciplinary teams) to help not only teens, but also teachers and carers to navigate in this area.

Friends from various shores

2025-03-01T12:40:25+01:00

Friends from various shores. – An introduction and commentary on the published correspondence between the philosopher Erazim Kohák and the theologian Karel Skalický. They met as participants in a conference on the meaning of Czech and Slovak history held in Switzerland in 1976, both of them exiles at the time, the philosopher and evangelical Erazim Kohák living in the USA and the theologian and catholic Karel Skalický in Rome. Erazim Kohák returned to his homeland soon after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In 1994, Karel Skalický also returned. Both were professors who wanted to offer the best of their scholarly and teaching profession to students in the emerging democratic society.