Biography

Ivo Paić, a Croatian political scientist and philosopher (Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29. I. 1935. – Zagreb, 5. III. 2024.), earned a bachelor’s degree and doctorate in political science in Belgrade, where he subsequently became a senior researcherat the Institute for the International Workers’ Movement, and served as a full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad from 1987 to 1991.

From 1991 to 1994, he led the defense strategy research program of the Republic of Croatia as the department head of the Sector for Strategic Research of the General Staff of the Croatian Army, and lectured on defense strategy at the War College until 2010. Since 1992, he has held the rank of colonel in the Croatian Army.

Prof. Paić studies contemporary issues in the philosophy of politics and the theory and practice of ideology, and also develops hermeneutic and phenomenological critiques of national, capitalistic and totalitarian ideas, together with their roles in the lives of individuals and communities, particularly the Croatian people.


His major publications include Mišljenje/djelovanje (Thinking/Action) (1979), Proizvodnja ideologije: prilog mišljenju prepreka samosvijesti (The Production of Ideology: A Contribution to Thinking about Obstacles to Self-Awareness (1984), Ruža i križ: ogledi o ideologijskom usmrćivanju jezika i čovjeka (The Rose and the Cross: Essays on the Ideological Killing of Language and Man) (1991), Sloboda i strah: hermeneutika predziđa – ogled o iskustvu svijesti hrvatskoga narodnog opstanka (Freedom and Fear: Bulwark Hermeneutics—A Portrayal of the Awareness of Croatian National Survival (1997), Imati Hrvatsku: paradoks jednoga obećanja (To Have Croatia: The Paradox of a Promise (2011), and Figure zaboravljanja (Figures of Oblivion) (2016).