Josef Ludvík Fischer

Josef Ludvík Fischer (6 November 1894 – 17 February 1973) was a Czech philosopher and sociologist, and an exponent of philosophical structuralism.

Life

Fischer was born on 6 November 1894 in Prague. After studies at upper secondary schools in České Budějovice and Třeboň (he graduated in 1912) he graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, majoring in Czech, German, and philosophy. He received his doctorate in 1919 (PhD. dissertation: ''Arthur Schopenhauer. Genese díla – Arthur Schopenhauer. Genesis of his works''). From 1921 to 1923, he worked in Prague libraries and was actively involved in the left-wing movement. He contributed articles to Stanislav Kostka Neumann's ''Června'', Bedřich Václavek's ''Studentské revue'', and worked with Zdeněk Nejedlý on the magazine ''Var''. Due to his left-wing activities, he was transferred away from Prague, to the Student Library in Olomouc, where he was employed until 1933. From 1924 to 1930, he was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.URBÁŠEK, Pavel. ''Josef Ludvík Fischer - rektor zakladatel''. In: Žurnál Univerzity Palackého, 14 (2004/05), no. 4, p. 6.

In 1927, with his habilitation work ''Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte'', Masaryk University in Brno awarded him the title Docent in Sociology, and in 1930 Docent in Philosophy. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, together with Bedřich Václavek and Jiří Mahen, he edited the magazine Index (1929–1939), and with Inocenc Arnošt Bláha and Emanuel Chalupný, he founded and edited the Sociologická revue (1930–1940, 1945–1948). From 1933 to 1935, he worked for the university library in Brno, and became an associate professor of sociology and the history of philosophy at Masaryk University in 1935. In Brno, he took part in the Left Front and in 1938 he became the head of the Brno office of the ''Společnost přátel demokratického Španělska'' (Society of Friends of Democratic Spain)''.''

After the Nazi Occupation of Czechoslovakia, he fled to the Netherlands, where he remained in hiding until after the war.. After his return to Brno, he was appointed full professor at the Masaryk University Faculty of Arts in October 1945, and served as the faculty's dean in the 1945/46 school year. At the same time, he took part in the reinstatenent of Palacký University Olomouc, and was encharged by Minister of Education Zdeněk Nejedlý to be its rector from 1946 to 1949GABRIEL, Jiří. ''J. L. Fischer v letech 1945–1948.'' 1. část. In: Studia philosophica, 59, 2012, no. 1, p. 72. (In the Palacký University Faculty of Arts course catalogue from 1949 to 1951, he is listed as Vice-Rector). In February 1948, he demonstratively rejoined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and became a high functionary in the regional action committee. At the National Culture Congress in April 1948, he spoke of the necessity of "subordinating the freedom of academic research to the emerging political situations".URBÁŠEK, Pavel. ''Josef Ludvík Fischer - rektor zakladatel.'' In: Žurnál Univerzity Palackého 14 (2004/05), no. 4, p. 6.

Nevertheless, at the close of 1948 he resigned from political functions, and in 1954 he wrote and sent a memorandum to the highest party and state authorities in which he criticised educational reform (including a protest against the closing of the Palacký University Faculty Arts and its transformation into the Faculty of Social Sciences of the newly established Higher School of Education). In 1955, he was expelled from the Communist Party. Because no suitable position was found for Fischer at the "expiring" Faculty of Arts, in May 1956, he was transferred to the Teacher Training University in Olomouc. In 1957, he was transferred to Masaryk University in Brno, where he became a professor in the Philosophy Department (as of 1 March 1957). However, he was soon forced into mandatory retirement on 1 January 1960.

When more liberal conditions prevailed in the second half of the 1960s, Fischer took advantage of this to publish in professional journals, and in 1965 he briefly worked at the Department of Psychology in the reinstated Palacký University Faculty of Arts. His work ''Sokrates nelegendární'' (literally, "Socrates the Unlegendary", 1965; English title: The Case of Socrates) was also published by Palacký University. In 1967, he became a research fellow at the Faculty of Education and Journalism of Charles University, and the following year he was called back to Palacký University Olomouc as a professor of philosophy and sociology. However, during the Normalization period, he was retired (1970), and the second edition of ''Sokrates nelegendární'', prepared for publication in 1970, was not published due to political reasons.

Death

Fischer died on 17 February 1973 in Olomouc. Death came to Fischer when he was still working at top capacity. In accordance with his conviction of the permanent incompleteness of our knowledge, he continued to rethink his categorical system and studied new natural science material for a planned contribution to the Soviet journal ''Voprosy filosofii'' (Questions of Philosophy). He was buried in the Central Cemetery in Olomouc-Neředín.

In 1992, Fischer was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, 4th class, in memoriam. Since 1994, a bronze memorial plaque with a relief of J. L. Fischer has been placed in the vestibule of the Palacký University Rector's Office. The ''Společnost Josefa Ludvíka Fischera'' (Josef Ludvík Fischer Society) was founded in Olomouc, a publisher which also runs the annual J. L. Fischer Memorial Lecture.

Family

Fischer was twice married. In 1925, he married Aloisia, née Konrádová, a teacher prior to their marriage, and had two children with her, Jiří (b. 1925) and Viola (b. 1935). After his divorce, he married a second time in 1961 to his former pupil, thirty-two years his junior, Jarmila Kantorková. This marriage produced two daughters, Soňa (born 1961) and Sylva (born 1963).

His daughter Viola was a significant poet and translator; his daughter Sylva Fischerová is also a significant poet, writer, and university teacher.

Membership in learned societies and professional organizations

* Czech
** Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences
** Československá národní rada badatelská (Czechoslovak National Research Council)
** Česká akademie věd a umění (Czech Academy of Sciences and Art)
** Jednota filozofická (Philosophy Union)
** Sociologická společnost (Sociology Society)
** Svaz československých spisovatelů (Czechoslovak Writers' Union)
* International
** Delta Tau Kappa, Bridgeport CT, USA
** G. W. Leibnitz-Gesellschaft, Hanover
** House of World Cultures, Berlin
** Accademia Teatina per le Scienze
** Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate

Philosophy

His critical alignment with the philosophy of positivism and pragmatism led Fischer to develop his own philosophical system, which he called "compositional philosophy". It was intended to build on the structural methods of individual sciences which prefer the whole rather than the individual parts. The concept of the whole is one which Fischer defined in his ''Základy poznání'' (Foundations of Knowledge, 1931) through the help of the concept of function, and thus created an original system of functional structuralism, which he applied to his analysis of the societal reality in ''Krizi demokracie'' (Crisis of Democracy, 1933). For Fischer, the crisis of democracy was part of a more general cultural crisis, which he associated with a quantitative and mechanistic conception of reality. He schematized structural similarities between individual cultural elements (e.g. between science, economics, and politics) via the concept of the ''cultural prototype''. Thus he anticipated several subsequent cultural-sociological problems (cf. Foucault's concept of the ''épistémè''). He saw a way out of the crisis in the ontological rehabilitation of quality, which he returned to elaborate, along with other categories of function and structure, in his collection ''Filosofických studií'' (Philosophical Studies, 1968).

In popular culture

Zdeněk Vašíček recalled: "Ludvík Svoboda

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