KAREL NOVOTNÝ

Karel Novotný (1964) has been a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the CAS since 1990. In 2016, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc.) by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He studied philosophy and physics at Charles University (graduation 1989) and philosophy and political science at the Katholische Universität Eichstätt in Germany (Magister Artium 1997), He completed his PhD studies at Université Paris XII and at the Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (2003), habilitated in philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc (2012), and was appointed Professor of Philosophy at Charles University in 2019.
Since 2009, he has been the Director of the Central European Institute for Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, together with Prof. Hans Rainer Sepp. His awards include the Award of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for outstanding scientific achievement (1 October 2014) and the Order of the French Republic Knight of the Academic Palms for scientific merit and active contribution to university and scientific cooperation between France and the Czech Republic (31 March 2015). He has been a visiting scholar at 7 foreign universities and was a Fulbright Research Scholar at The New School for Social Research in the USA in 2022/26.
As part of his work at the Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the CAS in Prague, he has led 7 grant projects from 1993 to the present in which he has addressed central themes in philosophy, and in particular their thematization in both classical phenomenology in Germany and especially in new and contemporary French phenomenology. He is the author of two monographs (2012 and 2023) and 40 studies on the philosophy of Jan Patočka. In total, he has published 6 book monographs (3 of which abroad), (co-)edited 18 collective monographs (13 of which abroad), and published over 80 scholarly studies.

Curriculum vitae here. 

Research interests:

concepts of phenomenality from Kant to the present; the relationship between soul and body, or the question of embodiment, from Descartes to the present; metaphysics as a relation to the totality of the world, from Kant to contemporary concepts of cosmological philosophy; philosophy of nature in the 20th century and contemporary eco-phenomenology

Selected publications:

Život a svět. Fenomenologie Jana Patočky (Life and World. Phenomenology of Jan Patočka), Červený Kostelec: Nakladatelství Pavel Mervart 2023. 327 pages

Welt und Leib. Zu einigen Grundmotiven der Phänomenologie (Orbis phaenomenologicus, vol. 50). Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2021, 164 pages

Relevance subjektivity. Tělo a duše z hlediska fenomenologie afektivity (The Relevance of the Subjectivity. Body and Soul from the point of view of Phenomenology of the Affectivity). Červený Kostelec: Nakladatelství Pavel Mervart 2016, 213 pages

La genèse d’une hérésie. Monde, corps et histoire dans la pensée de Jan Patočka (Bibliothèque de l‘histoire de la philosophie. Nouvelle série). Paris: Vrin 2012, 184 pages

Neue Konzepte der Phänomenalität. Essais zur Subjektivität und Leiblichkeit des Erscheinens (Orbis phaenomenologicus, vol. 26). Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2012. 199 pages

O povaze jevů. Úvod do současné francouzské fenomenologie (On the Nature of Appearances. Introduction to the Contemporary French Phenomenology). Červený Kostelec: Nakladatelství Pavel Mervart 2010, 420 pages

Membership in professional institutions:

Member of Study Boards for postgradual studies of philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities. Member of the Scientific Board at the Faculty of Humanities.
Vice-Dean for Habilitations and Professorships at the Faculty of Humanities.

Member of editorial boards of several periodics: Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, Interpretationes. Studia Phaenomenologica Europaenea (Acta Universitatis Carolinae), Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, Philosophie, Reflexe, Lidé města.

Web:

SIF: Středoevropský institut filosofie
Profile at FHS UK
Profile at the Europhilosophie websiterofile at the Europhilosophie website