Emanuel Rádl


Emanuel Rádl was an original Czech biologist, historian of science, philosopher and a critical supporter of Masaryk´s pre-war democratic Czechoslovakia. He earned international renown by his works on the evolution of neural system and as historian of evolution theories.

Life and thought

One of five children of a village merchant's family in Pyšely, Rádl studied biology at Charles University in Prague, where he became assistant professor in 1904 and full professor in 1919. He worked on the neural system of insects, on phototropism and on the evolution of sight. Influenced by the German biologist and philosopher Hans Driesch, he became interested in philosophy of life and in a large work The History of Biological Theories he criticized the evolutionism of the 19th century. At the book's climax at the end of Chapter 33, Rádl dismisses Darwinism with the words
Under the influence of Masaryk he inclined more and more towards philosophical questions, became a critic of scientific positivism and after the establishment of Czechoslovakia a public critic of several contemporary tendencies he considered dangerous. He wrote books on Czech and German nationalism, on social justice, on the fundamental differences between the West and the East and very early against the misuse of racial theories and against antisemitism. Together with the Protestant theologian J. L. Hromádka he co-founded the Czech Academic YMCA and published numerous booklets on various public topics. In 1934 he presided the 8th International Congress of Philosophy in Prague, but after 1935 he was gradually excluded from public life by a serious illness. He died in 1942 in Prague during the German occupation in almost complete isolation. His posthumous book Consolation from Philosophy, in the oppressive mood of war, is a highly personal profession of faith in the lasting values of truth and religion and evoked a lively discussion after its publication in 1946.
"How to save our civilization from decay? This is the desperate question of our time, the more desperate that no one feels the danger."

Some works

In English:
In Czech and German: