Once soil was a fundamental source of livelihood and its ownership was desired by all. After the first and the second industrial revolution are money produced in completely different way. But we are still living products of agriculture, even if it became a marginal and despised sort of enterprise. Nevertheless, subjective love towards land and plants still continues, whether in the form of gardens or flowers.

Stanislav Komárek (b. 1958, Jindřichův Hradec) is a professor in the Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences at the Faculty of Science, Charles University Prague. He is also a writer and essayist. He also holds a degree in biology from the Faculty of Biological Sciences of Charles University. He was briefly employed at the Institute of Parasitology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in České Budějovice, after which he opted for exile in Austria. He lived there as an émigré from 1983 to 1990, working in Vienna, first at the Museum of Natural History, and then later at the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, and ultimately at the Institute of Zoology of Vienna University.

Education and employment

1982 - RNDr. in Systematic Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, Charles University
1982-83 – graduate student at the Parasitology Institute, České Budějovice
1983-84 – employed at the Museum of Natural History, Vienna, Austria
1985-88 – research worker at the Plant Protection Institute in Vienna
1989-90 – research worker at the Zoological Institute of the Vienna University
1983-90 – cooperation with the Altenburg Circle for Philosophy of Sciences (prof. Riedl, prof. Oeser)
since 1990 - assistant professor, Dept. of Philosophy and History of Sciences, Faculty of Science, Charles University Prague
1993 - 6 months at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands
1994 - habilitation in Entomology, title docent
1996 -2002 head of the Dept. of Philosophy and History of Science, Faculty of Sciences, Charles University Prague
1997 – Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education
2001 – professor of Philosophy and History of Science

Currently Komárek is professor in the Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences at the Faculty of Science of the Charles University, Prague.

Scientific and pedagogical specialisation: the history of biology and other sciences, the relations of nature vs. culture, mimicry and biological aesthetics.

Memberships in scientific societies: Oesterreichische Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Czech and Slovak Ethological Society, Czech Society of History of Science.

Other actictivities: scientific journalism.

Selected publications in English

Komárek, S., 1998: Mimicry, aposematism and related phenomena in animals and plants. Bibliography 1800-1900. 296 pp. Praha, Vesmír.
Komárek, S., 2003: Mimicry, aposematism and related phenomena. Mimetism in nature and development of its knowledge. München, LINCOM.
Komárek, S., 2009: Nature and culture. The world of Phenomena and the world of interpretations. München, LINCOM.