Authors

Discussion

There was a striking difference between the post-1989 development of the Departments of Philosophy at the Prague and Brno universities. While in Prague nearly all members of the department were replaced subsequently (only two staying, plus two staying at the university but moving into other departments), in Brno there were no replacements, just two re-hirings of former colleagues that had to leave previously. The decisive factor explaining the difference is probably the high quality of Prague underground philosophy which (1) provided enough potential job candidates, and (2) exerted a kind of pressure on the pre-1989 faculty. Besides, the Prague department was more damaged in the 'normalization' decades. Further comparison with Olomouc and Bratislava shows that it was Prague that was exceptional. A few individual cases will be discussed in some detail.