Karel Kosik

• Region — Western philosophy • Era — 20th-century philosophy • Name — Karel Kosík • Born — 26 June 1926 • Birthplace — Prague, Czechoslovakia • Died — 21 February 2003 • Place of death — Prague, Czech Republic • Education — Charles University in Prague (PhD, 1950) Leningrad University (no degree) Moscow State University (no degree) • Institutions — Charles University in Prague • School Tradition — Continental philosophy Marxist humanism • Main Interests — Social philosophy, politics, ethics, aesthetics • Notable Ideas — Dialectics of the concrete • Academic Advisors — Jan Patočka

Karel Kosík was born on 26 June 1926 in Prague. From 1 September 1943 until his arrest by the Gestapo on 17 November 1944, he was a member of an illegal anti-Nazi 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 and repeatedly questioned. From 30 January to 5 May 1945 he was imprisoned in Theresienstadt concentration camp. From 1945 to 1947, Kosík studied philosophy and sociology at the Charles University in Prague. 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 magnum opus, Dialectics of the Concrete, a re-working of Marxian categories in terms of humanist phenomenology, which earned him an international reputation as a leading philosopher of 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.

Books • 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.