Publication Details

Abstract

The paper is concerned, with the activity of one of the well known representants and propagators of Marxian philosophy in Slovakia after 1945, Stanislav Felber (1905 — 1956). He was out of before his time, at an age of 51; this year he would be 60. The study deals with his work and philosophical activity in Slovakia beginning with the Forties until his death in 1956. His work is dealt with in the general context of the philosophical thinking of that time in Slovakia; the author evaluates both Felber’s contribution to this thinking and his political and publicistic activity. In the view of the author particularly the years 1946 — 1949 can be considered as the most important and most creative period of Felber’s life. Originally mathematics and physics were the objects of Felber’s interest. Through them he proceeded to logics and gnoseology, and to the philosophical problems of natural sciences. His first philosophical works were started to be published during World War II in the cummulative volumes of the Matica slovenská. He was writing them in very unpropitious social conditions; but even in these circumstances they were apt to be considered as the most pogressive writing thinkable to appear in Slovakia ruled by a clero-fascist government. His Weltanschauung was based on natural sciences; as against the official religious and mystical philosophy, Felber has introduced rationalistic elements into Slovak thinking. In this period he was strongly influenced by the neopositivistic tendencies of the philosophers of the Viennese circle. From them he worked himself through to the philosophy of dialectic materialism. After 1946 his philosophical papers were published prevailingly in the cummulative volumes of Philosophica Slovaca, and later in the periodical Slovenský filozofický časopis (Journal of Slovak Philosophy). Among his works published as books the following are to be mentioned: „Vedomie a podvedomie“ (Consciousness and Subconsciousness — 1948), „Ján Bayer, slovenský baconista XVII. storočia“ (Ján Bayer, the Slovak follower of Bacon in the 17th century — 1953), „Veda a náboženstvo“ (Science and Religion — 1958), „Filozofia matematiky“ (The Philosophy of Mathematics — 1959).