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]
“Kosík’s Conception of the 19th Century”
e-mail: milos.havelka@gmail.com
This paper is concerned with three aspects of Kosík’s conception of the 19th century. First with the post-Stalinist understanding of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and conception of history; second with Marxism and the “Czech question”; and third with Kosík’s conception of Central Europe.
Karel Kosík and His ‘Radical Democrats’ Moving From a Historical to a Systematic Approach to Philosophy
e-mail: hermannt@centrum.cz
The production of Marxist historians of philosophy who at the Institute of philosophy of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences systematically researched and re-evaluated the history of Czech philosophy culminated around 1958. A turning point came with the conference Philosophy in the History of the Czech Nation in Liblice, which brought [read more]
Spirit of Resistence. Brief notes for an intellectual biography of Karel Kosik
e-mail: michael.lowy@orange.fr
Karel Kosik was not only one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the 20th century, but one of those that better embodied the spirit of resistance of critical thought. He is also one of the few that fought, in their succession, the three great forces of oppression of modern history: Fascism, during the 1940’s, Stalinism, after 1956, and the dictatorship of the Market, after 1989. At a time when so many thinkers gave up their autonomy, Kosik stands up, refuses to surrender, and doesn’t hesitate to think against the current. [read more]
Was ‘Revisionist’/’Humanist’ Marxism the Beginning of the End? or, Was Dissidence Doomed to Become Liberal?
e-mail: gmtamas@gmail.com