Landmark analysis of authority written in Nazi-occupied France
Alexandre Kojève was one of the key figures of twentieth-century philosophy. He is most widely known for his lectures on Hegel, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, which shaped a generation of French intellectuals.
Kojève was a magician of thought ... undoubtedly, he was the
inventor of the last grand narrative of philosophy and history, of
which the neo-conservative ideologue Fukuyama was but a mediocre
imitator.
*Pierre Macherey*
Kojève's lectures made a deep impression on his listeners - to more
various and influential effect than probably any others in France
this century
*Perry Anderson*
Kojève spoke of Hegel's religious philosophy, the phenomenology of
Spirit, master and slave, the struggle for prestige, the in-itself,
the for-itself, nothingness, projects, the human essence as
revealed in the struggle onto death and in the transformation of
error into truth. Strange theses for a world beleaguered by
fascism!
*Louis Althusser*
Alexandre Kojève's originality and courage, it must be said, is to
have perceived the impossibility of going any further, the
necessity, consequently, of renouncing the creation of an original
philosophy and, thereby, the interminable starting-over which is
the avowal of the vanity of thought.
*Georges Bataille*
A brilliant Russian émigré who taught a highly influential series
of seminars in Paris. Kojève had a major impact on the intellectual
life of the continent. Among his students ranged such future
luminaries as Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron.
*Francis Fukuyama*
Alexandre Kojève ... is one of the most notable Russian thinkers of
the twentieth century ... the lectures represent an exceedingly
important (and tendentious) interpretation of Hegel, if not an
independent philosophical view in the guise of a seemingly
objective scholarly commentary.
*Slavic and East European Journal*
In recent decades, Kojève's voluminous manuscripts and papers, held
at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, have become available to
researchers. Hager Weslati is among a new generation of scholars
busily exploiting this material. A gramophone cannot possess
authority, nor can a subject under hypnosis be said to respond to
it-both examples are Kojève's. Despite its apparent conservatism,
there is an underlying revolutionary message. Discussions of
Jacques Rousseau's notion of the general will, the division of
powers, the problem of tradition, and the impossibility of the
political trial will all be stimulating for any political
theorist.
*German Studies Review*
This English translation of Alexander Kojève's The Notion of
Authority is an important addition to philosophical studies of
authority and an essential text for understanding Kojève's
political thought. While Arendt and Marcuse favored a negative
definition of authority, Kojève sought a positive definition - one
that would be ultimately usable in his political present during
WWII. The era of bourgeois domination commences in a fascination
with only the present (this is why concerns of food and sex are
paramount to the bourgeoisie). However, ultimately this present
fails because it does not have a past or a future.
*Philosophy Now*
Capably translated from French by Hager Weslati, this relatively
short manuscript was written in 1942 in Marseille where Kojève had
fled to escape the Nazi occupation. It attempts to answer a
singular question that, in Kojève's view, has been strangely
neglected: What is authority? Kojève insists time and again that
force does not constitute authority. To the contrary, having
recourse to force shows a failure of authority.
*Slavic and East European Journal*
Through its pursuit of increasing depoliticization, neoliberalism
undermines its own sources of political legitimacy and ultimately
reduces human relations to the application of force in the service
of individual ends. Kojève's understanding of the nature of
authority helps explain the distinctively political aspects of
these developments.
*"Uncivil Society: Hegel, Kojève, and the Crisis of Political
Legitimacy"*
Bourgeois domination represented the arrival of the bourgeois end
of history, in the form of a permanent present. Authority is
disconnected from all its temporal support, having nothing left to
offer. Kojève thus foresees the inauguration of simulacrum as the
justification of authority. Kojève left an open letter that allows
for ample discussion. And for as long as a determination of the
coming times still has a role to play, a reprise of Kojève's text
will remain timely.
*Radical Philosophy*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
