Luka Borsic

The movement of middle and upper-class women demanding higher education as a path to emancipation, which ideologically began in the eighteenth century, became increasingly stronger and more organized during the nineteenth century. The University of Zurich allowed women to study in 1864, making it one of the first universities to open its doors to women. Besides Swiss women, foreign women who could not yet enroll as regular students in their own countries also studied there. Among them were Croatian women. The article discusses Croatian women who earned their doctorates at the University of Zurich from 1874 until the beginning of World War I. Helene Druskowitz and Elza Kučera earned doctorates in philosophy. Vera Philippović, Ada Broch, and Zora Prica earned doctorates in English literature, while Isolde Betlheim, Zora Živković, and Katica Jakšić Musulin earned doctorates in medicine.

This text comprises three distinct sections. In the initial part, we give an overview of some specificities of Croatian, i.e., national philosophy. In the subsequent section, five Croatian women philosophers are represented from the perspective of their contributions to Croatian philosophy; we offer an overview of their works and evaluate their overall contributions to Croatian philosophy. Finally, in the concluding section, we provide an explanation for the notably heightened significance of Croatian women philosophers in advancing the exploration of national philosophy in comparison to their male counterparts.

Our text is divided into two[aut]Skuhala Karasman, Ivana parts. In the first part an overview of the life and career of the Austrian philosopher of Croatian origin[aut]Druskowitz, Helene, Helene Druskowitz will be given. She was born near Vienna in 1856. In 1878, she received her doctoral title from the University Zurich. She was the first womanWomen from a Germanic country to receive a doctoral title in the regular way. After her return to Austria, she tried to make her career as a free-lance writer and public speaker. During this time, she made some influential acquaintances (F. Nietzsche, M. von Salis-Marschlins, M. von Ebner-Eschenbach, F. C. Meyer and others). However, due to her unorthodox lifestyle and mental problems she was put in various institutionsInstitution and sanatoria in which she spent the rest of her life, from 1891 till 1918. In the second part of our text her book from 1887, Wie ist Verantwortung und Zurechnung ohne Annahme der Willensfreiheit möglich? will be analized. In this book Druskowitz defends a compatibilist position: she reconciles naturalist determinismDeterminism with the defense of responsibilityResponsibility. Her argument is based on a combination of a revised position of Schopenhauer supplemented by a moral interpretation of evolutionism. Persons are self-conscious representatives of a particular combination of naturalNatural forces which makes humans both a part of the naturalNatural world (and thus determined) but, since they are a special part of nature, and aware of it, they bear moralResponsibility responsibility.

In der Sekundärliteratur ist die Beziehung zwischen Émilie Du Châtelet und Ruđer Bošković selten beachtet und nie ausführlicher untersucht worden. Berücksichtigt man aber das Leben und die Werke dieser zwei WissenschaftlerInnen und PhilosophInnen, so sieht man mancherlei Ähnlichkeiten und gemeinsame Interessen, die sie verbinden und diesen Vergleich rechtfertigen. Hier werden wir nur ein für ihre Zeit wichtiges und viel diskutiertes Moment in Betracht ziehen: die Frage nach der vis viva, womit sich beide beschäftigt haben.

One of the key concepts in modern science is force (F). In present studies on the history of dynamics, Patricius is either completely omitted or only cursorily mentioned. The aim of this text is to show that Patricius’s concept of the soul, as he developed it in his Nova de universis philosophia from 1591, comes close to the modern (i.e. Newtonian) understanding of force. This should support the more general position that one of the most intriguing aspects of Patricius’s philosophy is his contribution to the emergence of modern science.

There is no clear answer as to why there are more employed male philosophers than female philosophers in most universities. The first part analyses the problem of the historical under-education of women – which may be a simple explanation for the absence of women in the history of philosophy. Today, however, the situation in the humanities, including philosophy, is different, as there are often more female than male students, but this does not lead to a significant balance of men and women in higher academic positions. Therefore, the first part of the paper also discusses fifteen hypotheses about the causes of this state of affairs, some of which have been rejected, some of which are highly probable, while further research is needed to confirm or reject some. The second part addresses the problem of the idea that traditional philosophy needs “the feminine” as “the other”, which it defines negatively. This position can be rejected with similar arguments that can also be used to reject essentialism.

Tekst predstavlja analizu situacije sa ženama filozofkinjama u Hrvatskoj tijekom komunističko-socijalističkog razdoblja (1945. - 1989.). Analiza se usredotočuje na dva aspekta: stjecanje doktorata iz filozofije i publikacije. Naša analiza pokazuje da su filozofkinje tijekom tog razdoblja po oba kriterija, odnosno po broju doktora filozofije i broju publikacija, bile proporcionalno na otprilike istoj razini kao i danas u zapadnim zemljama, uključujući današnju Republiku Hrvatsku. Komunistički socijalizam je bio koristan za filozofkinje na dva načina. Prvo, administrativno, uklonio je prepreke za zapošljavanje žena na sveučilištima i znanstvenim institutima. Drugo, komunizam i socijalizam, sami po sebi filozofske i socio-filozofske doktrine, nudili su niz novih tema, istraživanja i elaboracija za daljnji razvoj. Ti čimbenici omogućili su da u Hrvatskoj, koja je u to vrijeme bila ekonomski i obrazovno mnogo manje razvijena od većine današnjih zapadnih zemalja, proporcionalno isti broj filozofkinja ima akademsku poziciju kao danas u zapadnom svijetu (uključujući današnju Hrvatsku). Također smo analizirali sedam najvažnijih filozofskih časopisa koji su izlazili u to vrijeme i utvrdili da je između 1945. i 1989. godine 15,4% tekstova bilo napisano od strane žena. Omjer ženskog autorstva je 0,2. To je impresivan broj ako uzmemo u obzir da je u to vrijeme omjer ženskog autorstva bio veći nego trenutno na JSTOR-u, uzimajući u obzir razlike u postupcima objavljivanja tada i sada.

U središtu ovog teksta nalaze se neki filozofski aspekti Elze Kučere (1883. — 1972.). Kučera je 1909. godine doktorirala filozofiju na Sveučilištu u Zürichu i tako postala prva Hrvatica rođena u Hrvatskoj koja je doktorirala filozofiju. No, glavni joj je interes bila psihologija, a kasnije i bibliotekarstvo te su, osim doktorskih disertacija, gotovo svi njezini objavljeni radovi unutar tih disciplina. No, u arhivu Nacionalne i sveučilišne knjižnice u Zagrebu čuvaju se njezina rukopisna i neobjavljena djela, a među njima se može pronaći i određeni broj čisto filozofskih tekstova. Kako bismo prikazali filozofiju Elze Kučere, u ovom tekstu analiziramo dva aspekta njezina filozofiranja. Prvi je njezina diskusija problema uzročnosti kojim se bavi u pregledu epistemologije Thomasa Browna u svojoj doktorskoj disertaciji pod naslovom Spoznajna teorija Thomasa Browna: povijesna studija (Die Erkenntnislehre von Thomas Brown: eine historische Studie, Zagreb, 1909.). Drugi je pitanje nacionalne filozofije kojim se bavimo u kraćem tekstu o toj temi, napisanom vjerojatno 1918. ili 1919. godine i koji nikad nije objavljen. S obzirom na to da Elza Kučera kao prva žena filozofkinja, eksperimentalna psihologinja i knjižničarka u nas do danas nije dobila dužnu pozornost, donosimo i njezinu biografiju.

Ovaj rad pokazuje kako pojam mjere, koji je jedan od najmnogoznačnijih filozofijskih pojmova, počinje dobivati etički smisao tijekom povijesnog razvoja grčke filozofije. U prvom dijelu pokazuje se kako se u Homerovim epovima riječ ‘mjera’ i srodne riječi odnose isključivo na konkretno mjerljive količine. Drugi se dio bavi mijenom značenja, koja se zbiva u pitagorovskom mišljenju. Tu se najviše pažnje poklanja povijesnim okolnostima nastanka grčkog polisa, za što je vrlina umjerenosti bila neophodno potrebna. U tom kontekstu pobliže se razmatraju Filolajevi i Arhitini fragmenti, budući da oni ukazuju na političku važnost mjere i mjerenja. Treći dio posvećen je analizi relevantnog odjeljka iz Platonova Državnika u kojem Platon razlikuje dvije vrste mjerenja: brojčano i drugo, koje se može nazvati ‘deontičkim’, koje mjeri ono više i manje u odnosu na ‘pravu mjeru’. Druga vrsta mjerenja je također i etičko mjerenje utoliko što uključuje različite prosudbe svrhe, ciljeva i prirode čovjeka.The aim of this article is to show how the concept of »measure«, which is one of the most intricate and manifold philosophical concepts, started acquiring ethical meanings in the course of Greek philosophical thought. In the first part it is discussed how the word »measure« and its cognates refer exclusively to concretely measurable quantities in Homer’s epics. The second part deals with the switch of meaning that started happening in the Pythagorean thought. In this part more attention is paid to historical references of emergence of the Greek polis for which the virtue of temperance was indispensable. In this context fragments of Philolaus and Archytas are more closely observed because they point to political importance of measure and measurement. The third part is dedicated to analysis of the relevant passage in Plato’s Statesman in which Plato distinguishes between two concepts of measurement: one numerical and the other, which can be called »deontic«, which measures more and less with respect to the »right measure«. The second kind of measurement is also ethical because it includes various judgments of purpose, goals, and human nature.