Institute of Philosophy was founded in 1946 as a part of Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1953, when Slovak Academy of Sciences was established, the Institute became its member. In 1975 the Institute was merged with the Institute of Sociology under the heading Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of Slovak Academy of Sciences. In 1990, after political changes in Czechoslovakia, the institutes separated from each other, and the Institute returned to its original name Institute of Philosophy of Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The research activities at the Institute cover a broad range of topics from analytic philosophy and philosophy of science, environmental philosophy, social and political philosophy, phenomenology, history of philosophical and political thinking to ethics. The research is realized at the departments by solving grant tasks.

The Department of Analytic Philosophy focuses on the logical, epistemological, semantical, and metaphysical analysis of fiction on one side, on hyperintesionality and the logic of responsibility, on the other. Therefore, the department’s research includes both theoretical research in analytic philosophy as well as its practical applicability. We offer the following Ph.D. topics: Problem of Grasping of Hyperintensional Language Phenomena; Formal Analysis of Impossible Objects; Formal Analysis of Fictional Discourse; and Transparent Intensional Logic: Theoretical Development and Application.

The Department of the History of Slovak Philosophical and Political Thought is devoted to research of philosophical and political thought in Slovakia with an emphasis on its development prior to 1918 as well as on innovative elements in the second half of the twentieth century. Research attention is concentrated on an analysis of philosophical influences within the reception and appropriation of ideas in the history of philosophical and political thought in Slovakia from a Central European perspective. A component of research is the conceptualization of key questions within Slovak philosophical discourse and their overlap into other social areas. At the same time, the department researchers focus on selected issues in the history of philosophy in the former Upper Hungary and former Czechoslovakia. Subjects with an emphasis on comparing Hungarian, Slovak and Czech philosophy and mapping the development of so-called national philosophies are in the centre of their attention. Particular analyses of individual philosophical-political, literary and intellectual arguments are framed in the department’s research profile via cultural modernization, institutionalization and democratization, which determine the development and character of Slovak philosophy in the twentieth century.

The Department of Environmental Philosophy focuses on the philosophical investigation of problems related to the relationship between man and nature, and on the reflection of the causes and socio-political consequences of environmental degradation, pollution, and the climate crisis. It focuses on issues of environmental and climate justice, philosophical assumptions, and implications of the concepts of environmental law, natural resource rights, resettlement rights, as well as the concepts of anthropocene, capitalocene, sustainable retreat, zero or negative growth and ecological civilization. It examines the possibilities of formulating answers to the challenges facing society after exceeding the environmental limits of sustainability from the positions indicated by political ecology, social ecology, critical environmentalism, and other directions of environmental thinking.

The Department of Social Philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology is concerned with the research of fundamental social structures from the systematic perspective, with the analysis of the relations between society and the natural conditions of its existence, as well as with the exploration of the issues of the human against the background of his socio-cultural determinations and his attitudes towards Being, others, and himself. Issues in the history of philosophy constitute an integral part of the department’s research.

The Department of Normativity and Human Rights Research examines the emergence of normativity, persistence and change of norms in ethics and applied ethics. The central focus is the explanation of the philosophical aspect of human rights with regards to social and special conductive facts, normative aspects of philosophy of social knowledge and logic applied in law. Also, the department examines social cognition and different experiment with respect to their epistemic and methodological relevance. Normativity and its concept are the link between the members of the department.

Another importatnt activity of the Institute is the PhD study program which is realized in close cooperation with the Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy at the Philosophical faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava and the Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy at the Philosophical faculty of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.

The Institute co-operates with many institutions in Slovakia and in Europe, for example with the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion (IRC) in Oxford, UK, Institut für Philosophie, Universität Wien, Austria, Université Paris 8, France, the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society of the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, Faculty of Humatities and Social Sciences, University of Szeged, Hungary, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria.