Piccone was born in L'Aquila, Italy on January 17, 1940. He immigrated to the United States with his family at age 14, and they settled in Rochester, New York. After undergraduate studies at
Indiana University Bloomington, he did his doctoral work in philosophy at the University at Buffalo where he received his Ph.D. in 1970. He was appointed to a position in the Department of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, and published
Telos from his office there until he was denied promotion and tenure in 1977. Following a tumultuous administrative and legal struggle to reverse that decision, he left the Midwest to set up shop in New York's East Village in the 1980s.
Telos For over three decades,
Telos survived as an independent "quarterly journal of critical thought" under his editorship. Selected articles by Piccone are available from the
Telos online store. During the 1980’s the journal moved away from its former left political orientation. ==Death==