Karel Kosík (26 June 1926 – 21 February 2003) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

Marxist philosopher. In his most famous philosophical work, ''Dialectics of the Concrete'' (1963), Kosík presents an original reinterpretation of the ideas of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

in light of

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

. His later essays can be called a sharp critique of the modern society from a leftist but not strictly Marxist position.

Biography

Karel Kosík was born on 26 June 1926 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

. From 1 September 1943 until his arrest by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

on 17 November 1944, he was a member of an illegal

anti-nazi Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

communist resistance group ''Předvoj'' (The Vanguard) and a chief editor of an illegal journal ''Boj mladých'' (The Fight of Youth). After his seizure Kosík was accused of

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

and repeatedly questioned. From 30 January to 5 May 1945 he was imprisoned in

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

. From 1945 to 1947, Kosík studied philosophy and sociology at the

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

. In the years 1947–1949, he also attended courses at the Leningrad University and the Moscow State University in the USSR. He graduated in 1950 in Prague at the Charles University. In this part of his life he met his future wife Růžena Grebeníčková (later laureate of Herder Prize), from this marriage came three children (Antonín Kosík, Irena Kosíková and Štěpán Kosík). In 1963, he published his ''wikt:magnum opus, magnum opus'', ''Dialectics of the Concrete'', a re-working of Marxian categories in terms of humanist

, which earned him an international reputation as a leading philosopher of Marxist Humanism, humanist Marxism. During the "Prague Spring" of 1968, Kosík became a leading voice for democratic socialism (a distinction he shared with other prominent Marxist humanists like Ivan Sviták and Robert Kalivoda). This political engagement led to Kosík's dismissal from university work in 1970, after the period of democratization had ended. He remained unemployed until 1990, when he returned to public intellectual life as one of Central Europe's few prominent leftist social critics.

Legacy

Spanish-Mexican Marxist Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez wrote in the prologue for the Mexican edition that he considered ''Dialectics of the Concrete'' to be "one of the richest in thinking, [one of the] most charming and attractive works as we know it in Marxist literature". French-Brazilian Marxist Michael Löwy and Argentine historian Horacio Tarcus wrote for ''Le Monde'': The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) held a conference on Kosík's ''œuvre'' between 4 and 6 June 2014 in Prague. Organized by Ivan Landa, Jan Mervart, and Joseph Grim Feinberg, it had people from around the world discussing the impact of Kosík's thought on "issues that are still relevant today". Landa and Mervat are working on a "critical edition" of "everything Kosík had ever published or written for print during his lifetime", including books, essays and short notes. To be published in Czech, it is planned to have seven volumes, out of which three are complete as of September 2016: one of essays on political activities and on the Czech radical democrats of 1848; a volume of essays on culture and politics from the period of 1956–1967; and a re-edition of ''Dialectics of the Concrete'' and philosophical essays the same time period. Also, with funding from the CAS Landa and Mervart are translating texts to be published in "a comprehensive English volume" on Kosík'.

Work

* ''Čeští radikální demokraté'', Praha 1958 * ''Dialektika konkrétního'', Praha 1963, 1965, 1966 ** English translation: ''Dialectics of the Concrete'', Dordrecht 1976 * ''Moral und Gesellschaft'', Frankfurt am Main 1968, 1970 * ''La nostra crisi attuale'', Roma 1969, Barcelona 1971 * ''Století Markéty Samsové'', 1993, 1995 * ''Jinoch a smrt'', Praha 1995 * ''Předpotopní úvahy'', Praha 1997 (In English: Antediluvian Thoughts) * ''Poslední eseje'', Praha 2004 ;Articles * "Dialectic of the Concrete Totality"
''Telos''
2 (Fall 1968). New York: Telos Press.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

(Czech)

(Czech)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kosik, Karel 1926 births 2003 deaths Czech humanists Czech Marxists Marxist theorists Marxist humanists Charles University alumni 20th-century Czech philosophers