Inception of Culture from the Ontology of Labour

e-mail: iangus@sfu.ca

The essay is an appreciation and critique of Kosík’s account in Dialectics of the Concrete of the origin of culture from the ontology of labour. Kosík’s Heideggerian concept of labour as a happening (Geschehen) in which human being expresses itself is followed through in his theory of culture, or not-labour, where he understands human reality as
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Kosík’s Marxism: Sources, Significance and Limitations

e-mail: J.Arnason@latrobe.edu.au

The paper will start with memories of reading Dialectics of the Concrete, shortly after its first publication, and  of its impact on  the Czech intellectual scene of the times. A second section will then discuss the distinctive characteristics of Kosík’s Marxism, with particular reference to its phenomenological and/or Hegelian orientation. Finally, [read more]

Dialectics of the Concrete, Abstract Labour, and Criticism of Existentialism

e-mail: siyavesazeri@gmail.com

Forms of cognition and categorization of the world correspond to forms of historically-specific human activity. A Marxian dialectical analysis of epistemology, therefore, is a criticism of the existing forms of cognition, of knowing the world and of categorizing it as historically-specific forms of activity. A Marxist analysis should begin with asking the [read more]

Kosík’s Concept of „Concrete Totality“ and Its Criticism

e-mail: bartosvit@seznam.cz

The paper introduces ontological and epistemological principles that Karel Kosík employs in his seminal work Dialectics of the Concrete.  It will be concerned particularly with methodologically fundamental part of the book called “Dialectics of the Concrete Totality”. Kosík states that the concept of “concrete totality” may provide better alternative to the [read more]

Karel Kosík: Intertwining Philosophy and Life

In the last part of the Dialectics of the concrete Karel Kosík strove to shine a light on the issue of praxis, defining it as the sphere of human being, whose authentic existence consists in contrasting the mere givenness (K. Kosík, 1976, p. 136). My intention with this paper is to show how this intuition is further developed [read more]

Odysseys of Mind: Categoriogenesis of Concrete Entities

e-mail: tchrist65@msn.com, std033296@ac.eap.gr

The author examines the status of dialectics and especially Kosik’s contribution on the connection between wholeness and the empirical, as has been stated from ancient Greek philosophy and on. Dialectics of Concrete is examined as a rigorous attempt of describing the continuous birth of the ‘sciences of the experience of mind ‘,as Kosik states it referring to the structure of Capital.
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Karel Kosík and Heidegger: from marxism to traditionalism

e-mail: J.Cerny@seznam.cz

The philosophical work of Karel Kosík can be perceived as a dialogue with the thinking of Martin Heidegger. Whereas Dialectics of the Concrete in the first place embraces the existential ontology of Sein und Zeit, the late thinking of Kosík, as we find it in his essays published in recent 20 years, is determined by the late development of Heidegger’s thinking
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