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

within Kosík’slate output, in which the idea of life seems to emerge. In an essay from 1997, the philosopher states: “The essence of life is the overcoming of every one-sidedness, because life is not determined by any monopolistic force, but it is rather continuous and it reinvents itself as a balance between different forces” (K. Kosík, Předpotopní úvahy, 1997, p. 248). Stressing this idea and will allow me to introduce an interpretation of Kosík’s thought, not just as a philosophy of praxis, but also as a philosophy of life.