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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Mass shooting at Charles University in Prague

Brian Leiter

Several readers have called this horrible event to my attention, since it does have a philosophy "connection." The shooter appears to have been a 24-year-old philosophy student, who killed his father before coming to the Faculty of Arts building at Charles University, which houses several departments, including philosophy.  He killed at least 15 people, and wounded dozens of others, before killing himself.  It is unclear at this time whether he specifically targeted faculty or students in the philosophy department.  The shooter appears to have acquired the gun legally; perhaps Czech authorities will now revise their relatively liberal laws regarding gun ownership.

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3 responses to “Mass shooting at Charles University in Prague”

  1. Stephen Menn

    https://sarajevotimes.com/who-was-david-kozak-award-winning-history-student-allegedly-inspired-by-a-russian-assassin/

    He was an Master's student in the Philosophical Faculty, but not in the Philosophy Department. But the philosophers are in the same building and had to live through the whole ordeal.

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  2. Stephen Darwall

    I gave a talk there last March and was just in touch with my host, Matej Cibik, who says that everyone in the philosophy department is fine. "We were just having a PhD defense when that happened. Luckily, the shooter was on the 4th floor and the Philosophy department is on the second…æ

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  3. Justin Smith-Ruiu

    Czech president Petr Pavel tweeted yesterday: “Jsem šokován událostmi na Filozofické fakultě Univerzity Karlovy” (“I am shocked by the events at the Philosophy Faculty of the Charles University”). This quote has routinely been rendered in English-language media as “I am shocked by the events at the Faculty of Arts…”. It's true that at the Charles University the Philosophy Faculty is something more like a School of Arts housing several humanities departments than like a philosophy department in the US sense, but still, in Pavel's original Czech, the targeting of a philosophy-related unit at the university comes across more clearly.

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