As an occasional feature on TELOSscope, we highlight a past Telos article whose critical insights continue to illuminate our thinking and challenge our assumptions. Today, Tomash Dabrowski looks at Karl Korsch’s “Ten Theses on Marxism Today,” from Telos 26 (Winter 1975–76).
Although the work of Karl Korsch was cardinal to subsequent theoretical developments within the twentieth-century Marxist canon, the appreciation of his work is usually eclipsed in intellectual history by the long shadow cast by Lukács over the development of what would later be called “Western Marxism.” Nevertheless, the belated rediscovery of Korsch’s work by the New Left was certainly in part due to the fact that Korsch’s position was the more heretical in the eyes of the Soviet variant of Marxist orthodoxy. Although Lukács dismissed the dogmatic hagiography of Marx’s conclusions, he nevertheless introduced his magnum opus, History and Class Consciousness, with the “scientific conviction” in the method of dialectical materialism. Even provided that all of Marx’s findings would be proven false, genuine Marxist method would nevertheless yield a privileged relationship to history.
“This book does nothing less than to set new standards in combining philosophical with political theology. Pabst’s argument about rationality has the potential to change debates in philosophy, politics, and religion.” (from the foreword by John Milbank) 
On Tuesday, June 5, at 7pm, St. Mark’s Bookshop and Telos Press Publishing will present a reading and discussion with Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt about their new book The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism. The discussion will be hosted by Russell Berman and Tim Luke. The reading will take place at St. Mark’s Bookshop, located at 31 Third Avenue, between 8th and 9th Streets, in New York City. This is a free event. For directions and additional information about St. Mark’s Bookshop, please visit their 
The article compares and contrasts Odo Marquard’s and Hans Blumenberg’s views on skepticism and its relationship to literature. Whereas Marquard’s skepticism can perceive literature only as “exile of serenity,” Blumenberg’s skeptical attitude toward skepticism leads to a very different notion of literature and a different exegetical praxis. The latter can be observed in Blumenberg’s volume on Matthäuspassion. 
