Full Name Rudolf Krejci | Name Rudolph Krejci | |
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Born March 4, 1929 Hrusky, Czechoslovakia Nationality Czechoslovakian-American Notable work The "Three Worlds" Idea; "Anticipatory Intelligence Study"; Problem of Consciousness. Ideas and Linguistic Proxies; the "Nature of Eureka and Creativity", Comperative studies East-West philosophy Dissolution of the Realism/Antirealism problem Languages Czech, German, French, English, Russian, Latin, Old Church Slavonic Time 20th-century philosophy Regions Western and Eastern Philosophy Schools Analytic Philosophy, Phenomenology (philosophy) | ||
Rudolph (Rudy) Krejci, (Czech: Rudolf Václav Krejčí, , 4 March 1929) is a Czechoslovakian-American philosopher and professor. Krejci is known for his lifelong battle against two ideologies of the 20th Century - Nazism and Communism in favor of the open society. Rudy Krejci continues "to speak out for intellectual and cultural freedom," even as his personal safety and freedom have been threatened repeatedly. Krejci is the founder of the Philosophy and Humanities Programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and founder of the College of Arts and Sciences at University of Alaska and its first Dean in 1975. Krejci lectured on philosophy in the USA, Canada, England, Europe and Asia and cooperated with the International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Austria, Siu's panetics in Washington D.C., Viktor Frankl's logotherapy in Vienna, and Takashima's humanistic anthropology in Tokyo. In 1997 Krejci became the Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Humanities after his 37 years of service at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
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Biography
Rudy Krejci was born in Hrusky, Moravia (then Czechoslovakia) in 1929. His father, a railwayman, was a Czechoslovak who received his basic education solely in German. His mother was a Moravian-Slovak with Czech education.
Krejci studied at high school in Kromeriz and Brno, where he was introduced to philosophy thanks to professor Antonin Kriz, who translated Aristotle's work into the Czech language. His studies and freedom ended on May 1, 1949 when Krejci, as a member of an anticommunist dissident student group, was persecuted. Krejci had to go into hiding in a secret room of his father's apartment, where he stayed for five years. In May 1954 with help of his father he escaped Czechoslovakia while hiding in a coffin under a coal wagon covered with vinegar and mustard. Krejci found his freedom across the Iron Curtain in Vienna, Austria. From 1954-1959 Krejci studied at University of Innsbruck, Austria, majoring in philosophy, psychology, Russian history and literature. In 1959 he became a Doctor of Philosophy.
Krejci then went to USA to work as an engineer for Bechtel Corporation and Bethlehem Steel and in 1960 he was offered a contract to teach Russian and German at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Two years later he established a program in Philosophy to which he, after 13 years, added a program in Humanities. After one year as a dean of Arts and Letters he formed a new College of Arts and Sciences.
Krejci's career with the university almost ended during a political dispute with a former University of Alaska president (William Ransom Wood) for opposing Project Chariot, scheme by the federal government to detonate up to six nuclear explosions along the northwest coast of Alaska to create a new deep water harbour for future mineral extraction. For opposing project Chariot, says Krejci, "Wood came to me and told me: "If you go on as you do now, there is only one way, one way from Alaska, direct, down to lower states. This is what he told me." With Krejci's involvement, Project Chariot never happened.
Awards
Governor Sean Parnell presented the 2009 Governor's Awards for the Humanities to Krejci for "Distinguished Service to the Humanities in state of Alaska."