Alexandre Kojève: A Man of Influence

This edited volume addresses Alexandre Kojève's work from different perspectives, emphasizing the continuity between his early reception of a set of non-philosophical and philosophical influences and that which he might have sought himself to exercise in a pedagogical and practical manner. The first part of the book comprises six essays in which their authors explore Kojève's understanding of art, religion and atheism, and his reception of the thought of Hegel, Marx, and Carl Schmitt. The book's second part is made up by two contributions that tackle respectively Kojève's conceptions of the “end of history” and “empire” in the light of his notion of Sophia or “Wisdom”, and his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and power in the light of an exegetical reading of the debate he held with Leo Strauss. The authors of the final three essays set out to explore the extent to which Kojève's previous processing of a set of non-philosophical and philosophical influences might have resulted in three increasingly concrete outcomes, namely: his notion of authority; the Lacanian mirror-stage; and global trade.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Three Sources of Influence: Art, Religion, and Philosophy Chapter 1: From the Inexistent to the Concrete: Kojève after Kandinsky by Isabel Jacobs Chapter 2: Between Kant and Hegel: Alexandre Kojève and the Absolute State by Jeff Love Chapter 3: Kojève and Christianity by José María Carabante Chapter 4: History and Nothingness: Kojève´s Re-Leveraging of Hegel´s Dialectic of Freedom by Waller R. Newell Chapter 5: Kojève and Marx: Elusive Affinities and Divergences by Igor Shoikhedbrod Chapter 6: Alexandre Kojève and Carl Schmitt: Mythologies of Enmity by Massimo Palma Part II: Action and End of History/Wisdom: Means and End of the Concept toward Concretion Chapter 7: Wisdom, Self-Consciousness, and Empire by Alexei Rutkevich Chapter 8: Tyranny or Wisdom: A Reading of the Strauss-Kojève Debate by José Daniel Parra Part III: Three Concrete Kojevean Outcomes and their Likelihood: Authority, the Mirror Stage and Global Trade Chapter 9: Authority and Legitimacy in Alexandre Kojève´s The Notion of

About the Author :
Luis J. Pedrazuela is currently a research fellow at the University of Leeds.

Review :
Where it fruitfully contributes to Kojève’s legacy is in teasing out the meaning of its titular reference of Kojève as a “man of influence.” For this edited volume on the oeuvre of French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, Pedrazuela solicited the work of a truly international group of scholars. The book excels in bringing together the most up-to-date research on Kojève's work in general and his lesser known or recently published texts in particular, such as his writings on art, an unpublished and almost indecipherable 1,000-page manuscript in Russian, and his memorandums for the French Ministry of the Economy…. The essays implicitly raise further research questions, such as Kojève’s relationships to Heidegger, the American idea, psychoanalysis, and contemporary art. Though this volume, apart from the excellent essay on Kojève and Strauss, is not for novice readers, it is highly recommended for anyone seeking to begin research on Alexandre Kojève. Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty. This is a stimulating collection that sheds new light on Kojève’s thought and activity. The contributions do justice to the remarkable range and continued relevance of the enigmatic figure. This is a wide-ranging, informative, and provocative collection of essays, well organized and integrated so as to shed much needed light on the thought of the greatest Hegelian of the twentieth century. Alexandre Kojève is well known for having introduced a whole generation of French philosophers to an existentialist version of Hegel’s system. One of the great merits of the collection of essays gathered by Luis J. Pedrazuela is to highlight the breadth of Kojève’s work besides his lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. The contributions to this collective book draw attention to other important writings by Kojève such as his Notion of Authority and his Outline of a Phenomenology of Right. They enrich our understanding of the philosophical Twentieth Century by placing these works in the context of Kojève’s exchanges and correspondence with some of his contemporaries, particularly Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. These articles on Alexandre Kojève range from the relation of his thought to other thinkers (Hegel, Marx, Strauss, Schmitt, Lacan) to his understanding of the deepest roots of political life (authority, and right or justice); from his practical concerns with economic issues whose resolution could help lead (via European integration) in the direction of a peaceful global order to the character of art toward the end of its historical development. The collection testifies to scholars’ ongoing fruitful fascination with this brilliant, paradoxical, and profound philosopher.