Jan Hus is especially well-known as a preacher and theologian whose activities anticipated the European protestant reformation and the hussite movement. It should not be forgotten, however, that Hus worked for many years as a teacher at the Faculty of Liberal Arts. He was therefore also a philosopher reflecting on contemporary subjects, among which was the reception of the philosophical thought of John Wyclif at Prague University, and the discussion of the reality of universals connected with it. The study maps Hus’s realist conception of universals on the basis of an analysis of the dispersed fragments of his pronouncements on universals from his quaestiones and from his Sentences commentary. The author divides this mapping into four different contexts: (1) God’s nature and the Trinity of Persons; (2) the ideas in God’s mind; (3) being as an analogical quasi-universal; and (4) the very conception of universals, that is of genera and species. In these different thematical areas, the study shows that Hus’s realism played an important role in his philosophico-theological thought of constituting its philosophical grounding. It could be said that although Hus’s realistic attitudes were influenced to a great extent by the thought of John Wyclif, Hus rejected or softened Wyclif’s heterodox opinions and the demands stemming from realism. Hus’s metaphysical standpoint, in the writings in question, also do not show a direct connection with his thoughts on church reform.
Studie zkoumá možná východiska pozdněobrozenské filosofie zdravého českého rozumu. Poukazuje na podobnost mezi jejími cíli a cíli německé protischolastické a protikantovské (obecně protiidealistické) osvícenské filosofie konce 17. a 18. století. Všechny uvedené směry zdůrazňovaly potřebu pěstovat filosofii v národním jazyce široce srozumitelným způsobem a volaly po praktické užitečnosti filosofie a vyhýbání se samoúčelné metafyzice. Závěrem je nastolena otázka, zda lze za těmito podobnostmi nalézt i hlubší souvislost. Karel Havlíček a Vilém Gábler, nejvýznamnější představitelé filosofie zdravého českého rozumu, se k žádným německým idejím nehlásili. České pozdněosvícenské spory (myšleno zemsky) o ráz zdejší vědy, jak je odráží střet mezi stoupenci univerzitního profesora krásných věd Carla Heinricha Seibta a přírodovědce Ignaze von Borna o to, zda má česká věda směřovat ke krasodušství, nebo k přírodovědnému ovládnutí přírody, však přímo navazovaly na německé osvícenství. Obdobně lze v českém prostředí nalézt i ohlasy protikantovských výpadů v podobě parodování jeho kriticistního způsobu vyjadřování. Tyto příklady ukazují, že německá osvícenská témata a ideály byly v českých zemích rozebírány a prosazovány dlouho před vystoupením filosofů zdravého českého rozumu., The study examines possible sources of late-revival philosophy of Czech common sense. It points to the similarity between its aims and the aims of German anti-scholastic and anti-Kantian (generally anti-idealist) englightenment philosophy of the end of the 17th and 18th centuries. All these lines of thought emphasised the need to cultivate philosophy in the national language in a broadly intelligible way, and they called for the practical usefulness of philosophy and the eschewal of metaphysics as an end in itself. By way of conclusion the question is posed as to whether, in these circumstances, it is possible to find a deeper connection. Karel Havlíček and Vilém Gábler, the most important representatives of the philosophy of Czech common sense, did not express an affiliation with any German ideas. The Bohemian late-enlightenment controversies about the nature of local science, as it reflects the clash between advocates of the university professor of fine sciences, Carl Heinrich Seibt, and the natural scientist, Ignatius von Born, on the question of whether Bohemian science should be orientated towards fine sciences or to the mastership of nature by natural science, did however directly appeal to the German enlightenment. In a parallel way one finds, in the Czech context, anti-Kantian attacks taking the form of parodying his critical means of expression. These examples show that German enlightenment themes and ideals were studied and nurtured, in the Czech Lands, long before the appearance of the philosophers of Czech common sense., and Tomáš Hlobil.
This study determines, from a doctrinal view, the date of the origin of Hus’s Quaestio de testimonio fidei christianae as, at the earliest, in the year 1408, and it displays in particular detail Hus’s teaching and its sources in this regard. Among these sources belong on the one hand the texts of Hus’s teacher Stanislav of Znojmo, on the other hand the texts of John Wyclif. It is the tracts of these two that allow one to reconstruct the doctrine of Hus’s standpoint. It is shown that Hus, like Stanislav and Wyclif, was a proponent of the dual creation of universals, that is by a pure act of God and by a pure potential in the sense of first matter. Hus addressed this quaestio in a theological context, or more exactly in the context of Christian faith, although his vocabulary preserves the semblance of philosophical language. Hus clearly sought, in this quaestio, to say that human reason is not capable of knowing universals, but that universals were revealed in scripture (Gen 1,21-25), and therefore every Christian must recognise their existence on the basis of faith.