[1][2][3][4] Established in May 1968 by Paul Piccone and fellow students at SUNY-Buffalo with the intention of providing the New Left with a coherent theoretical perspective, the journal, which has long considered itself heterodox, has been described as turning to the right politically beginning in the 1980s.

– discuss] In this light, the journal sought to expand the Husserlian diagnosis of "the crisis of European sciences" to prefigure a particular program of social reconstruction relevant for the United States.

In order to avoid the high level of abstraction typical of Husserlian phenomenology, however, the journal began introducing the ideas of Western Marxism and of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School to a North American audience.

[11][12][13] In a 1971 pamphlet, in reference to its heterodoxy, members of the Chicago Surrealist Group said Telos conference organizers were "capable only of promoting the peaceful coexistence of various modes of confusion".

[14][independent source needed] Over time, Telos became increasingly critical of the Left in general, with a reevaluation of 20th century intellectual history, focusing on authors and ideas including the legal philosopher and Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt,[15][2][16] federalism, and American populism through the work of Christopher Lasch.

[7][25][26] The audience "shifted uncomfortably in their seats and chuckled in embarrassment" when Francis said the 1947 anti-austerity riots targeting Jews in England were an authentic form of populism to embrace, as recalled by Lowndes.

[5][7] Noting various criticisms, Timothy Luke, a Telos editor, described the journal in a 2005 remembrance of Piccone as "out beyond the margins of the established academy ... featuring the voices of alternative networks recruited from the contrary currents of many different intellectual traditions".