Komenského cesta k obnove poznania
Comenius' Path to the Restoration of Knowledge

Summary/Abstract: The intellectual history of Europe in the 17th century is characterized by widely shared efforts to reform the knowledge overlapping and agreeing with pansophic efforts to varying degrees – efforts to build unified and systematised knowledge. The interest in the issue of knowledge, description of its current state and the corresponding efforts to systematise the existing findings may be found in the earliest works by Johann Amos Comenius. There he presents wisdom as the most valuable treasure a man can acquire in their life. He believes the wisdom lies in the true knowledge of all existing entities and therefore it includes physical, biological, chemical, geographical, astronomical knowledge, as well as theological, literary, ethical and historical knowledge. Not only was the Pansophism supposed to summarise the existing knowledge but also to complete it to the extent that all other books by man become useless. On the other hand, the purpose of encyclopaedias was to extend the systematic listing of individual disciplines and their findings. While purposes of Comenius’s encyclopaedias are rather utilitarian, later pansophic works pursue more universal objectives. For instance, they promote political unification of Christianity, spreading and realisation of the idea of Irenism. While encyclopaedic works offer overview of individual disparate disciplines, Pansophism seeks to build a system of unified knowledge.

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