Changes

([[April 28]] [[1902]] - [[1968]]) was a [[Marxist]] and [[Hegelian]] [[political philosopher]], who had a substantial impact on intellectual [[life ]] in [[France]] in the 1930s.

Kojève was [[born ]] in [[Russia]], and educated in [[Berlin]] and [[Heidelberg]], [[Germany]]. Early influences included the [[philosopher ]] [[Martin Heidegger]] and the historian of [[science ]] [[Alexandre Koyré]]. Kojève would spend most of his life in France where in [[Paris]] from 1933-1939 he taught a series of lectures on [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]'s [[work]], ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]''. After [[World War II]], Kojève worked in the [[French ]] Ministry of [[Economic ]] Affairs as one of the chief planners of the [[European Common Market]].

A "Marxist of the [[right]]," as he called himself, Kojève came to postulate as early as the 1950s that while [[Karl Marx]]'s [[philosophy ]] of [[history ]] was correct, and that history was progressing towards the emergence of a [[universal ]] and homogeneous [[state]], it would be [[liberal ]] [[capitalist ]] in [[character]], rather than socialist or [[communist]]. The then-dominant [[idealism|idealistic]] [[tradition ]] in France was of a [[Immanuel Kant|Kantian]] type with little influence of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]'s [[idealism]], which had been popular in [[Germany]], [[England]] and [[Italy]]. Coming in the heels of [[Alexandre Koyré]]'s [[understanding ]] of [[Time]] in Hegel, Kojève helped [[change ]] this in France, albeit in somewhat different [[terms ]] than those existing at that time in Germany and Italy.

[[Liberal capitalism]] had proven to be more efficient in garnering the technological requirements necessary to [[master ]] [[nature]], banish scarcity and meet the [[needs ]] of humanity. This view created much controversy when it was restated by [[Francis Fukuyama]] in his work ''[[The End of History]]'' ([[1992]]), which drew heavily on [[Hegel]] as seen by Kojève. Kojève's views on this were reprinted in the Spring 1980 (Vol. 9) edition of the French journal ''Commentaire'' in an article entitled 'Capitalisme et socialisme: [[Marx ]] est Dieu; Ford est son prophète.' Some critics of [[Fukuyama ]] have pointed out that his reliance on Kojève obscures some of the bleaker dimensions of Kojève's [[idea ]] of the "[[End of History|end of history]]."

Some of Kojève's more important lectures on Hegel have been published in [[English ]] in ''Introduction to the [[Reading ]] of Hegel: Lectures on [[Phenomenology ]] of Spirit''. Kojève's [[interpretation ]] of Hegel has been one of the most influential of the [[past ]] century. His lectures were attended by [[intellectual]]s including [[Raymond Queneau]], [[Georges Bataille]], [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]], [[Andre Breton]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Jacques Lacan]] and [[Raymond Aron]]. [[Other ]] French thinkers have acknowledged his influence on their [[thought]], including the [[post-structuralist]] [[philosophers ]] [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Jacques Derrida]]. His most influential work was ''Introduction à la lecture de Hegel'' (1947), which summarized many of his lectures and included, in [[full]], some [[others]].

Kojève also had a lifelong [[friendship ]] and correspondence with the US [[conservative]] thinker [[Leo Strauss]]; their correspondence has been published along with a critique Kojève wrote of [[Strauss]]'s commentary on Xenophon in Strauss, Leo ''On Tyranny: Including the Strauss-Kojève Correspondence'' (edited by Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth). Several of Strauss's students went to Paris to meet Kojève in the 1950s and 1960s. Included in those was [[Allan Bloom]], who endeavored during his lifetime to make Kojève's works available in English [[language ]] translations. It is worth noting, however, that the Straussian interpretation of Kojève is slanted and often patronizing: Kojève is regularly presented as a Machiavellian Mephistopheles, a grand and ingenious defender of [[evil]]. [citation?] In the 1950s, Kojève also befriended the former [[Nazi ]] [[legal ]] theorist [[Carl Schmitt]], whose "[[Concept ]] of the [[Political]]" he had implicitly criticized in his [[analysis ]] of Hegel's [[text ]] on "Lordship and Bondage." [[Another ]] close friend was the Jesuit Hegelian philosopher [[Gaston Fessard]].

In addition to his lectures on the ''Phenomenology of Spirit,'' Kojève has published other articles and books in French, a book on [[Kant]], and articles on the [[relationship ]] between Hegelian and Marxist thought and [[Christianity]]. A book Kojève wrote in 1943 was published posthumously in 1981 by the French publisher Gallimard under the title ''Esquisse d'une phenomenologie du [[droit]]'' in which he contrasts the aristocratic and bourgeois views of right. ''Le Concept, le [[temps ]] et le [[discours]],'' also published by Gallimard, further extrapolate on the Hegelian [[notion ]] that wisdom only becomes possible in the fullness of time. Kojève's response to Leo Strauss, who disputed this notion, can be found in Kojève's article 'The Emperor Julian and his Art of [[Writing]]' published in ''Ancients and Moderns: Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss'', edited by Joseph Cropsey, as well as in the above-mentioned edition of Strauss's ''On Tyranny''. Kojève also challenged Strauss' interpretation of the classics in a 1000+page book "Esquisse d'une histoire raisonnée de la pensée païenne," including one volume on the [[pre-Socratic]] philosophers, one on [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]], and one on [[Neoplatonism]]. His posthumously published book on [[Immanuel Kant]] received little attention. Recently, [[three ]] more books have been published: a 1932 [[thesis ]] on the [[physical ]] and [[philosophical ]] importance of quantum [[physics]], an extended 1931 essay on [[atheism]] ("L'athéisme"), and a 1943 work on "The Notion of [[Authority]];" like "Le Concept, le temps et le discours" these have not been published in English [[translation]].

Prior to going to France, Kojève studied under the [[existentialist]] thinker [[Karl Jaspers]], submitting his [[doctoral dissertation ]] on the Russian [[mystic ]] [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Vladimir Soloviev]]'s views on the mystical union of God and man in [[Christ]]. Kojève's uncle was the abstract [[artist ]] [[Wassily Kandinsky]], on whom Kojève wrote and with whom he maintained a correspondence. It is said that Kojève knew Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan dialects alongside his French, [[German]], Russian, English, and classical Greek.

Kojève died in [[Brussels]] in 1968, right after a giving talk at the [[European Economic Community]] (now [[European Union]]) on behalf of the French [[government]]. One of his repeatedly expressed positions in later years was that what had, in Marx's time and afterward, been known as a European [[proletariat]], no longer existed, and the wealthy West sorely needed to support developing countries through large monetary gifts (in the mold of the [[Marshall Plan]]) that would permit [[them ]] to overcome widespread poverty.

In 1999 Le Monde published an article reporting that a French intelligence document showed that Kojève had spied for the Soviets for over 30 years. The claims of this document (and even its [[existence]]) are disputed, and it has never been released. Kojève's supporters tend to believe that if it were [[true]], it was probably unsubstantial as spying per se and a result of his megalomaniacal persona, of his pretense to be a philosopher at the end of history influencing the course of [[world ]] events. In any [[case]], Kojève's contribution to international French economic policy was more than substantial. Though Kojève (ironically or seriously, it is not known) often claimed to be a Stalinist, he also regarded the [[Soviet Union ]] with contempt, calling its [[social ]] policies disastrous and its claims to be a classless state ludicrous. He specifically and repeatedly called it the only country [[living ]] in which 19th-century [[capitalism ]] still existed. His [[Stalinism ]] was ironic to the extent [[Stalin ]] had no political [[chance ]] to lead the Weltgeist; yet, he was serious [[about ]] Stalinism to the extent that he regarded the utopia of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and the willingness to purge unsupportive elements in the population, as evidence of a [[desire ]] to bring about the end of history, and as a [[repetition ]] of the [[Revolutionary Terror]] of the [[French Revolution]].