Radovan Richta
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Radovan Richta (6 June 1924 – 21 July 1983) was a
Czechoslovak Czechoslovak may refer to: *A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93) **First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38) **Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39) **Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60) ** Fourth Czechoslovak Repu ...
philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
who coined the term
technological evolution The term "technological evolution" captures explanations of technological change that draw on mechanisms from evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology was originally described in ''On the Origin of Species'' by Charles Darwin. In the style of t ...
; a theory about how societies diminish physical labour by increasing mental labour. Richta's first work was ''Člověk a technika v revoluci našich dnů'' ("Man and Technology in the Revolution of Our Day"), published in 1963. This work did much to bring the concept of technology into the forefront of philosophical thought during the 1960s. Richta then went on to publish ''Civilizace na rozcestí'' ("Civilization at the Crossroads") in 1966. "Crossroads" was a compilation work published by 60 authors (including and led by Richta) that "attempt dto analyze the social and human implications of the scientific and technological revolution". The concepts touched on in "Crossroads" are considered by some philosophical historians to be very ground-breaking for their time. Richta developed the famous term of "
Socialism with a human face Socialism with a human face (, ) was a slogan referring to the reformist and democratic socialist programme of Alexander Dubček and his colleagues, agreed at the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in April 1968, after he became ...
" serving as a motto of the
Prague Spring The Prague Spring (; ) was a period of liberalization, political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected Secretary (title), First Secre ...
period. He became the director of the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology of the
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Science ...
in 1969–1982."Prosinec 1969"
, Syndikát novinářů České republiky ("Syndicate of the Journalists of the Czech Republic"), in Czech, accessed November 14, 2010


Life

Richta was born in
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Richta organized a resistance movement against the
Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
, and his organization became part of the communist resistance in the critical moment of the worst persecution (or man-hunting). Richta was arrested and held prisoner for several months. He was saved by the Swiss Red Cross when they collected prisoners with the worst cases of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
and extracted them to Switzerland. Shortly after the rescue Richta's former fellow prisoners were executed on 2 May 1945.The translation is vague - the author could have meant the prisoners were killed without sentence.Jan Smíšek
"Chováme se jako revolucionáři?"
("We act as revolutionaries?"), Marathon 4 (August 1997), in Czech. Accessed 14 January 2011.
After the war Richta became quite ill, and beginning in 1958 he periodically spent time in sanatoria. In between bouts of sickness, and in a compromise with his doctors who prescribed complete bed rest, Richta studied and worked very hard. In the 1960s Richta took on the role of the leader of an interdisciplinary research team. In 1963 they released their first works - ''Člověk a technika v revoluci našich dnů'' ("Man and technology in the revolution of our days") and ''Komunismus a proměny lidského života'' (K povaze humanismu naší doby) ("Communism and changes of human life. To the nature of humanism of our time").


Selected works

# (1963) ''Člověk a technika v revoluci našich dnů'' ("Man and technology in the revolution of our days"); Published by Czechoslovak society "for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge" in Prague. # (1963) ''Komunismus a proměny lidského života (K povaze humanismu naší doby)'' ("Communism and changes of human life. To the nature of humanism of our time"); Part 1 of Richta's PhD dissertation, published by Czechoslovak society "for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge".The word 'science' in Czech is used to mean any of the traditional
sciences Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
such as
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
or
biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
, as well as
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
like
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
or,
history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
, or to mean all sciences and humanities together - i.e. to describe an effort to learn what is unknown.
# (1969) ''Civilizace na rozcestí - společenské a lidské souvislosti vědecko-technické revoluce'' ("Civilization at the crossroads - the social and human context of scientific-technical revolution") (Collective work). Published by Liberty in Prague, 1st edition 1966, 2nd edition 1967, 3rd edition 1969. # (1971) ''Vědecko-technická revoluce a socialismus'' ("Scientific-technological revolution and socialism"); (R. Richta - J. Filipec). # (1974) ''Člověk - věda - technika. K marxisticko - leninské analýze VTR'' Kolektivní práce pod vedením B. M. Kedrova, R. Richty, S. P. Odujeva ("Man-science-technology. The Marxist-Leninist analysis of STR"; Collective work under leadership of Kedrov, Richta, Odujev." STR = Scientific-technological revolution) # (1967) ''Vědecko-technická revoluce a marxismus'' ("Scientific-technological revolution and marxism"); Published in monthly issues of peace and socialism - 1. # ''Ekonomika jako civilizační dimenze'' ("Economy as a dimension of civilization"); Contribution for the Proceedings of the Institute of Economic Sciences (K. Kouba). Resource No. 42 team in an interdisciplinary FU Academy of Sciences. # (1968) ''Vědecko-technická revoluce a alternativy moderní civilizace'' ("Scientific-technological revolution and the alternatives of modern civilization"); Published in the journal Sociological č.5/1968. # (1975) ''Krize perspektiv buržoazní společnosti'' ("The crisis of the perspectives of the bourgeois society") Abbreviated as printed in the monthly New Idea No. 1 / 1975.


Notes


See also

*
History of technology The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques by humans. Technology includes methods ranging from simple stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and information technology that has emerged since the 19 ...
*
Information Revolution The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. ...
*
Sociocultural evolution Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how Society, societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes t ...


References


External links


Czech Philosophy in the XXth Century
an essay outlining the meaning and consequences of Richta's writing (see Chapter 13). * ''Civilizace na rozcestí'', oniline

complete text of "Crossroads", according to the first edition (Svoboda, Prague 1966)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richta, Radovan 1924 births 1983 deaths People from Prague 20th-century Czech philosophers Philosophers of technology