Karel Kosík and the Dialectics of the Concrete

0557902 - ÚSD 2023 RIV NL eng M - Monography Chapter
Hermann, Tomáš
Karel Kosík and His 'Radical Democrats'. The Janus Face of Dialectics of the Concrete.
Karel Kosík and the Dialectics of the Concrete. Leiden: Brill, 2022 - (Feinberg, J.; Landa, I.; Mervart, J.), s. 39-54. Historical Materialism, 243. ISBN 978-90-04-32536-4
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA16-07027S
Institutional support: RVO:68378114
Keywords : Karel Kosík * Czech radical democracy * dialectics of the concrete
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

In this chapter the author compares the two works by Karel Kosík, Czech Radical Democracy (1958) and Dialectics of the Concrete (1963), differ both in their form and in their general subject. After dealing with a particular historical issue, Kosík turned his attention to a general systematic investigation. While the two works are clearly different, one cannot draw a clear line between the two projects: we should therefore take a doser look at Czech Radical Democracy and the context in which it was written. It constitutes the intellectual background in which the issues dealt with in Dialectics of the Concrete had emerged. To this end, the author proceeds in three steps. First, he outlines some biographical and intellectual context and circumstances which inspired Kosík to write his book on Czech radical democracy (1. Stalinism and the History of Czech Philosophy). Then he uses this perspective to describe this work and its structure (2. Czech Radical Democracy and the Poverty of Czech Philosophy), and finally he focus on Dialectics of the Concrete from the perspective of its link with Czech Radical Democracy (3. The History of Philosophy as Philosophy and Dialectics of the Concrete).
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0331787