Where the Streets are Named for Philosophers
The streets and parks in a new neighborhood being developed in Prague will bear the name of well-known philosophers.
Map of the planned Rohan City development
The planned Rohan City will have at its center a square named for Simone Weil, and it will also have two other parks: one named for John Locke and the other for Derek Parfit.
Each of the following philosophers will have a street named after them:
Rudolf Carnap
Jacques Derrida
Josef Ludvik Fischer
G.W.F. Hegel
Ladislav Hejdánek
Thomas Hobbes
Edmund Husserl
Immanuel Kant
Erazim Kohák
Emmanuel Levinas
John Stuart Mill
Radim Palouš
Roger Scruton
Jan Sokol
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The main investor in the new development is the Sekyra Group, a name that may be familiar to readers owing to the renaming of Oxford University’s White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy in 2021. According to Prague Morning, the company’s founder, Luděk Sekyra, said:
I am pleased that our proposal to commemorate key Czech and Western philosophers has been accepted. These individuals have played a crucial role in shaping our civilization, influencing discussions on values, freedom, morality, and justice, both through their work and personal convictions.
Of course, the plans for the new neighborhood raise several questions:
- Is it true that the crime rates will be very low on Hobbes Street and on Mill Street, but for very different reasons?
- Will mixing one’s labor with the land in Locke Park be prohibited?
- Shouldn’t Kant Street be a lot wider?
- What could possibly be at the intersection of Carnap and Derrida?
…among others. For answers, we will have to wait another five to ten years, when, according to the developers, the construction of the new neighborhood and its buildings (including a new school) will be complete.
Streets in Barcelona are named for Plato and Descartes. They are parallel and on a hill. Plato is further up the hill than Descartes.
I’m absolutely delighted that Derridova will be orthogonal to Carnapova. That’s urban planning worth fighting for.
There’s also an uphill street in Perugia (Italy) called generically Via dei Filosofi, which branches out into several smaller streets named after specific philosophers (including Seneca, Machiavelli, Galilei, and Vico), and also into a steeper little street called The Philosophers’ Slope, leading to one of the ancient gates of the city – now closed.
I think Heidelberg has a similar Philosophenweg.
Lol, the “questions” are awesome.
Where are the women? Hypatia? Iris Murdoch, Mary Wollenstonecraft, Seyla Benhabib, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, G.E.M. Anscombe, to name a very few?
Read the article, Simone Weil’s getting the main square!
The Kantstraße Grand Tour
Tired of abstract contemplation? Ready to transcend your everyday routine? Come to the Ruhr area and embark on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage: a day trip to 11 Kantstraßen in 10 cities!
Begin your morning in the charming Kantstraße of Wattenscheid, then head straight to Bottrop to keep that critical momentum going. Before noon, you’ll breeze through the Kantstraßen of Essen and Mettmann, making your way toward Kantstraße Wuppertal-Katernberg, where categories of understanding meet public infrastructure.
After a brief but meaningful encounter with the Kantstraßen of Schwelm and Hagen, the journey continues to Kantstraße Dortmund. No visit would be complete without the obligatory stop at Kantstraße in Witten, followed by a contemplative stroll down Kantstraße in Herne. And then, the noumenal highlight: Kantstraße in Bochum – truly a synthetic a priori experience.
For those extending their stay, don’t miss our sequel itinerary: “The Immanuel-Kant Straßen or the Streets of Reason” – featuring Kant Schools, Kant Squares, and even Kant Bus Stops. Locals may even guide you to a hidden gem or two: the elusive Kantweg or Kantplatz.
I hope one Fine day this will come to NYC, perhaps to honor the specific geographical excellence of the current NYU department, in which one can step outside one’s Dorr, head down the Street and around the Block until one approaches a Field covered with Moss.
“What could possibly be at the intersection of Carnap and Derrida?”
That’s relatively easy: Quine.
No, it is Wittgenstein who was both the continental version of Carnap and the analytic version of Derrida.
In the Betzenberg area of Kaiserslautern, there’s a neighborhood bounded by Kantstraße, Hegelstraße and Leibnizstraße. It contains the side streets Schellingstraße, Lessingstraße, Herderstraße, and Schopenhauerstraße (a sad little lane leading to an alley). Nearby are Pascalstraße, Cusanusstraße, Rousseaustraße, Voltairestraße, and Spinozastraße. That last street looks complicated, with four laneways branching off, but they all share the same name — what appear to be several streets are all one.
I proudly live in Ortega y Gasset street in Villa Tesei, Hurlingham, povince of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In Amsterdam you have a nice little area in the southwest that has streets named after Carnap, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Anscombe.
How fun! Mexico City also has many streets named after philosophers! Leibniz, Rousseau, Descartes, Aristotle, Hegel, Schiller, Plato, Socrates, and others!
I found a part of Leverkusen with streets named after Adorno, Horkheimer, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Jaspers, Husserl, Bloch, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Schleiermacher, Lessing, Spengler, Scheler, Eucken, Eduard Spranger, Nicolai Hartmann. There’s also a Martin-Heidegger-Straße, which takes a right-angle turn and becomes Martin-Buber-Straße. Nearby Cologne has streets named for Wittgenstein and Herder.
Frankfurt am Main and Leverkusen each have streets named after Adorno and Horkheimer but not (as far as I can tell) Marcuse. A friend pointed out that the Dutch city of Arnhem has a Marcusestraat (and several other streets named for philosophers). I can’t find any German road named after Marcuse.
“Academy Hill” in Palos Verdes Peninsula, south of Los Angeles, has streets named after Rousseau, Montaigne, and Pascal, as well as a street named “Cartesian Circle”. At the top of the hill is Chadwick School, a K-12 independent school.