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Abstract

In the paper the philosophical works of Svätopluk Štúr areanalyzed — in the first part the authors concentrate on the interpretation of his gnoseologic conception developed in his book „The Problem of Transcendency in Contemporary Philosophy“, in the second part they pay attention to his works, published after the Second World War, especially to the conception of the „proper construction of life“, which was developed there. Štúr accepted the gnoseological position of the critical realism, he sought to resist the one-sidedness of idealistic and particularly metaphysical philosophical attitudes. His own position, however, was only a realistic modification of the idealistic standpoint in gnoseology. In the social-ideological and cultural sphere Štúr programmaticaly set up the postulate of synthesis and aimed at the integrity of thought and action. His philosophical thinking, which absorbed and refound various principles of diverse philosophical systems (especially those of Croce and J. Tvrdý) in an original way into a new philosophical conception of the harmonious synthesis of knowledge and life, was above all intent on the criticism and refutation of the „perverse“ intellectual systems of irrationalism, especially of the German biologic vitalism and it is here that his relatively positive contribution must be sought. Štúr, however, could not transcend his own intellectual horizon of idealistic, undialectical way of thinking. The historically positive moment of the philosophical works of Štúr, especially in the given context of the day, is manifested by his open and uncompromising antifascim and anticlericalism which was based on the abstract humanism of Masaryk, which also set limits to his viewpoints.