Background

Emanuel Rádl was born on December 21, 1873, in Pyšely, Benešov District, Czech Republic. Rádl was one of the eleven children of Frantǐek Rádl, a poor peddler, and his wife, Barbara. Of six children who survived infancy, one brother became professor of mathematics at Prague Technical University, and Rádl himself was mathematically gifted.

Education

With the help of an uncle, who was an abbot, Rádl graduated from the Gymnasium in Domǎlice, then entered a seminary to study theology. He gave up this study after some time, however, over the objections of his parents, and went to Prague, where he worked his way through the university, supporting himself by tutoring.

He was a brilliant student and took the Ph.D. in natural sciences. While at the university Rádl was influenced by F. Vejdovsky, a leading zoologist, and, especially, T. G. Masaryk, who was then a professor of philosophy. During his last years as a student Rádl began to publish scientific papers; the first, in 1897, was a petrological study, while later works were concerned with biology.

Career

Since no teaching posts were available at the University of Prague, Rádl was obliged to take the state education examinations and to accept a post at a secondary school in Pardubice, in eastern Bohemia. With the limited means at his disposal, Rádl continued to work enthusiastically in biology, the history of biology, comparative psychology, and philosophy. In 1904 he qualified as Privatdozent at the University of Prague, assigned to teach the biology of invertebrates “with special regard to its historical development.” The post was unsalaried, and Rádl simultaneously taught at a secondary school in Prague; his connection with the university, however, allowed him access to its extensive library, and he continued his own studies, working day and night.

Rádl published steadily, in both Czech and German, on a wide variety of topics. Most of his papers written during this period were summarized in Untersuchungen ̈ber den Phototropismus der Tiere (1903) and Neue Lehre vom zentralen Nervemystem (1913). Even more important than his biological articles were his critical essays on such topics as the philosophy of naturalists, Czech Naturphilosophen, Goethe, Leibniz and Stahl, vitalism, and the mechanics of evolution. Chief among these was his study (1900) of the histological work of the Czech biologist Purkyn̈e, in which Rádl attempted to analyze Purkyne’s method and genius.

With the publication of Geschichte der biologischen Theorien (1905–1909) Rádl’s name became widely known. The work is by no means an ordinary textbook, and Rádl’s conception of the history of biology is still thought-provoking. His reputation, gained largely from this book, earned him a place on the editorial board of Isis, at its founding in 1913, and the first issue contains his article on Paracelsus.

World War I ended this international cooperation and increased the difficulty of Rádl’s life in Prague since he was known as a disciple of Masaryk, who was then in political exile. With the help of Masaryk, who became the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Rádl was appointed a professor of philosophy and history of natural sciences at Prague. The war had changed Rádl’s outlook, however, and he began to work toward a synthesis of philosophy and socially responsible religion. He traveled widely, disseminating his ideas, and took part in several international conferences. His chief concerns were reflected in Zdpad a Vychod(“West and East,” 1925), in which he proposed a nonformalized western Christianity as a unifying philosophy.

When Rádl was invited to join the faculty of an American university during his travels around the world in 1921–1922, his wife refused to accompany him and he returned to Prague, where he devoted himself to his philosophical work.

Rádl worked to propagate Masaryk’s social and philosophical ideals; he was himself, in fact, the more profound philosopher. During this time he also wrote a Czech textbook for his students, Moderní v̌da (“Modern Science,” 1926), and applied his general erudition to the organization of the new Masaryk encyclopedia. Rádl’s two-volume Ďjiny filosofie (“History of Philosophy,” 1932–1933) considered philosophers of all periods and reflected Rádl’s view that they should accept personal responsibility to work for the good of mankind. In addition he wrote books on the political problems that had begun to concern not only Czechoslovakia but also the world; these included V̓ltka ̌ech̊ s Ňmci (’The War of the Czechs Against the Germans,” 1928), also published in German as Der Kampf zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen, and O nemecke revoluci (“On the German Revolution,” 1933).

Rádl wrote on the contemporary mission of philosophy in such books as N̓bǒenstvi a politika (“Religion and Politics,” 1921); this was also the chief concern of the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy held at Prague in 1934, of which Rádl was organizer and president. These activities, together with increasing political tensions, limited the time and attention that Rádl was able to devote to the history of science; he initiated a collaboration with Otakar Matoǔek, who later succeeded him at the university, to write a major work on this subject.

This project was not realized; in 1935 Rádl suffered a light stroke, which was followed by another in the next year. He recovered from these but was soon afterward ordered to stay at home, where he spent the last five years of his life as an invalid, increasingly removed - through his wife’s unhappy anxiety - from the world, from his friends, and often even from his own children. He continued to write, and his study “La philosophie de T. G. Masaryk” appeared in 1938; in 1939 he published V̌da a vira u Komenského (“On the Science and Faith of Comenius,” 1939), the last work that he himself was to see in print. The Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia made further publication impossible. He died unexpectedly of pneumonia in the room to which he had been confined for five years. He left a penciled manuscript, Útěcha z filosofie (“Consolation from Philosophy”), which, although unpublishable during World War II, went through three editions after the war ended, prior to 1948. A fourth edition was published in 1968.

No complete study of Rádl has yet been made. Journals and newspapers printed articles on some aspects of his life and work in honor of his sixtieth birthday, but not even a eulogy was permitted at the time of his death - indeed, none was given at his funeral. His library was dispersed, and no really complete bibliography of his work survives. Only the first half of Rádl’s career is known outside Czechoslovakia; his work awaits the re-editing and translation that will establish him as what he was - one of the most original historians of biological ideas and one of the most original philosophers of his time.

Achievements

• At the beginning of the century, Radl published extensively on various biological topics from general anatomy and morphology to experimental etiology and the history of biological theories, becoming internationally known in his field after publishing the monumental Geschichte der biologischen Theorien (History of biological theories).
  
  Also, together with J. L. Hromádka he founded the Prague branch of the YMCA and the philosophical-theological journal Křesťanská revue (Christian revue) and he co-founded the Czechoslovak League for Human Rights. He was also an editor of the political-cultural journal Nové Atheneum (New Athenaeum) and of the leading philosophical journal Česká mysl (Czech mind) starting in 1932 and, together with Zdeněk Tobolka, the founder of the main republican encyclopedia Masarykův slovník naučný (Masaryk’s educational dictionary, 1925– 1933).
  
  He was also a long-serving chairman of the Philosophical Association as well as of the VIII International Philosophical Congress held in Prague in 1934.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Tomash G. Masarik: ego zhizn, obshchestvennai͡a i nauchnai͡a di͡ei͡atelʹnost 1933
  • Untersuchungen Über Den Phototropismus Der Tiere 1923
  • Geschichte der biologischen theorien seit dem ende des siebzehnten jahrhunderts 1905
  • Geschichte der biologischen theorien in der neuzeit 1913
  • The History Of Biological Theories 1909
  • Útěcha z filosofie 1946
  • Geschichte Der Biologischen Theorien, Part 1: Seit Dem Ende Des Siebzehnten Jahrhunderts 1905
  • Geschichte Der Biologischen Theorien, Part 2: Geschichte Der Entwicklungstheorien in Der Biologie Des XIX Jahrhunderts 1909
  • Válka Čechů s Němci 1928

Religion

Rádl's wife was a strongly conservative Catholic, while Rádl had left that church to become a liberal Protestant.

Politics

Rádl’s critique of nationalism and his democratic individualism resonated with the anti-communist democratic opposition in the 1970s and 1980s.

Views

The predominant factor of Rádl’s philosophy was idealism. Although he was influenced by Marx and by the Russian Revolution of 1917, he opposed materialism and asked for a deeper understanding of the human soul; he thus earned enemies on both sides. The “Consolation” is valuable chiefly as an illustration of his own spirit rather than as a general philosophical program, and as such, it is an impressive legacy. He wished to halt the disintegration that he saw in human society, and he saw in philosophy an effective means for doing so; finding most philosophy to be without creative force, he criticized it, embracing a strong practical Christianity.

Also, Rádl counted himself among Masaryk’s disciples, although he differed in many respects from the "pragmatic" generation. He studied biology and was a partisan of Bergsonian vitalism and Hans Driesch’s biological entelechy, which led him to introduce the term "organic purpose" for explaining natural processes. In his view, this was the ultimate goal that oriented the life and creation of organisms, which, however, stood beyond time and space. Rádl also applied this conception to his theories of humankind and civilization, but he kept the methods of natural and human sciences strictly separate. He also argued that human existence had a final goal. However, the organic purpose, in this case, stood for rational and task-achieving behavior. For him, people “know what they are doing,” they clarify their opinions in the process of critical discussion, they assert and fight for their goals.

Rádl also used his dualistic and Platonic conceptions in his writings on nationalism. In his view, there were two basic conceptions of the nation. In the first one, the nation is understood as a natural fact, a tribe or an organic community. In the second one, the nation is understood as a "community of free choice", in which every member decides for the explicit program of the community, through rational discussion. His notion of democracy was based on a resolute defense of the self-reflective, rational and morally aware individual against all forms of collectivism, populism or etatism.

Membership

Rádl was a member and a long-serving chairman of the Philosophical Association in Prague.

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Hans Driesch

Connections

In 1907 Rádl, with the encouragement of his uncle, married Marie Ptacnikova, the convent-educated daughter of a rich notary in Domazlice. His financial condition improved, but his domestic life was not always harmonious.

Father:

Frantǐek Rádl

Mother:

Barbara Rádl

Wife:

Marie Ptacnikova

collaborator:

Josef Lukl Hromádka

8 June 1889 Hotzendorf - 26 December 1969, Prague, a Czech Protestant theologian. He was a founder of the Christian Peace Conference.

teacher:

František Vejdovský

24 October 1849 - 4 December 1939

teacher:

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937, a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist and philosopher. Until 1914, he advocated restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state. With the help of the Allied Powers, Masaryk gained independence for a Czechoslovak Republic as World War I ended in 1918. He founded Czechoslovakia and served as its first president, and so is called by some Czechs the "President Liberator". Emanuel Rádl counted himself among Masaryk’s disciples, although he differed in many respects from the "pragmatic" generation.

References

• Emanuel Rádl: Philosoph und Moralist 1873-1942
  1995
• Don Quijote ceske filosofie: Emanual Radl 1873-1942
  1947
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1975