Karel KosÃÂk (; 26 June 1926 â 21 February 2003) was a Czech Marxist philosopher. In his most famous philosophical work, Dialectics of the Concrete (1963), KosÃÂk presents an original reinterpretation of the ideas of Karl Marx in light of Martin Heidegger's phenomenology. His later essays can be called a sharp critique of the modern society from a leftist but not strictly Marxist position.
Karel KosÃÂk 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 Pà Âedvoj (The Vanguard) and a chief editor of an illegal journal Boj mladých (The Fight of Youth). After his seizure KosÃÂk 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, KosÃÂk studied philosophy and sociology at the Charles University in Prague. In the years 1947âÂÂ1949, 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 Rà ¯à ¾ena GrebenÃÂÃÂková (later laureate of Herder Prize), from this marriage came three children (AntonÃÂn KosÃÂk, Irena KosÃÂková and à  tÃÂpán KosÃÂk). In 1963, he published his ', 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, KosÃÂk 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 KosÃÂk'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.
Spanish-Mexican Marxist Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez wrote in the prologue for the Mexican edition that he considered Dialectics of the Concrete to be "one of the richest in thinking, [one of the] most charming and attractive works as we know it in Marxist literature". French-Brazilian Marxist Michael Löwy and Argentine historian Horacio Tarcus wrote for Le Monde:
The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) held a conference on KosÃÂk's à Âuvre between 4 and 6 June 2014 in Prague. Organized by Ivan Landa, Jan Mervart, and Joseph Grim Feinberg, it had people from around the world discussing the impact of KosÃÂk's thought on "issues that are still relevant today". Landa and Mervat are working on a "critical edition" of "everything KosÃÂk had ever published or written for print during his lifetime", including books, essays and short notes. To be published in Czech, it is planned to have seven volumes, out of which three are complete as of September 2016: one of essays on political activities and on the Czech radical democrats of 1848; a volume of essays on culture and politics from the period of 1956âÂÂ1967; and a re-edition of Dialectics of the Concrete and philosophical essays the same time period. Also, with funding from the CAS Landa and Mervart are translating texts to be published in "a comprehensive English volume" on KosÃÂk'.