Alexandre Kojève

Sari Roman-Lagerspetz

Abstract
In his famous lectures, the Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève
(1902–1968) introduced a reading of Hegel which has been extremely influential,
particularly in France. In this interpretation, a struggle for recognition is seen as
the key, not only to Hegel’s philosophy but to the history of human beings.
Consequently, the realization of universal recognition would mean the end of
history as we know it.

Keywords
Kojève · Alexandre (1902–1968) · Recognition · Hegel · French philosophy

Alexandre Kojève (Koževnikov) (1902–1968) was a Russian-French philosopher.

Kojève, born in Moscow, immigrated after the Revolution, first to Germany where
he wrote his dissertation, and then to Paris where he worked most of his life. From
1933 to 1939 he delivered a series of lectures in l’École pratique des Hautes-Études
on Hegel’s philosophy. These lectures were published in 1947 with the title Intro-
duction à la lecture de Hegel (Introduction to the Reading of Hegel). After the war,
Kojève started working in the French Ministry of Economic Affairs where he held an
important position. Many of his writings have appeared only posthumously, and his
reputation as a philosopher is based mainly on his lectures. In the lectures, Kojève
used the famous chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit on Master and Slave as
an interpretive key, not only to Hegel’s entire philosophy but to world history as a
whole (Kojève 1946, 1947).
Kojève’s reading of the Phenomenology has been characterized as anthropologi-
cal. The initial birth of the human subject, as well as the development of human
societies, can be interpreted in terms of the struggle for recognition. Kojève sees
S. Roman-Lagerspetz (*)
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finnland
E-Mail: sari.roman-lagerspetz@helsinki.fi

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2 S. Roman-Lagerspetz

desire as the basic form of intentionality. Desire which takes another desire as its
object is a specifically human phenomenon. Only humans want to be objects of the
intentional attitudes of others: they want to be loved, admired, respected, envied,
feared etc. Only humans desire “things” which do not yet exist, and which have no
biological function. For Kojève, human beings, unlike other creatures, have no fixed
essence which would determine and limit their desires. They are “free nothingn-
esses”, constantly striving for something they do not yet possess. This striving has
two basic forms: work and struggle. Kojève was influenced by Marx; however, the
standard Marxist view is that human beings are labouring creatures who try to satisfy
their material needs, while for Kojève, the specifically human need for prestige is
central. War is the common external expression of this need. For Kojève, the
consciousness of one’s own mortality, and the willingness to risk death for the sake
of honour are unique for human beings. Masters, equated by Kojève with the ruling
classes in general but especially with the feudal rulers, gain their position because
they are willing to risk their lives. History is the history of warring Masters and
labouring Slaves. History moves towards greater equality when ever larger groups of
human beings achieve satisfaction through general recognition. Simultaneously
history is, as in Hegel, development of self-consciousness. Kojève argues that
Hegel’s philosophy is both self-grounding and self-fulfilling: if history is the deve-
lopment of self-consciousness, the theory which understands this is itself a decisive
factor in the development.
Full collective self-consciousness is possible only by universal recognition.
Kojève has become famous (or notorious) for his idea of the End of History as the
necessary outcome of the struggle for recognition. He ascribes this idea to Hegel and
claims that the emergence of the modern state in the French Revolution, its realiza-
tion in the Napoleonic Empire, and the simultaneous emergence of Hegel’s philo-
sophical system as its self-understanding constitute this end. All the later historical
events either complete it or are just temporary setbacks in its full realization. The end
is, according to Kojève, a “homogeneous universal State” in which there are no
unsatisfied claims for recognition and where people – or at least the Wise, such as
Hegel – can fully understand the nature of the world and the human being. This idea
is the most criticized part in Kojève’s philosophy. It may be interpreted as a version
of Marx’s communist utopia, but also as liberal individualism in a perfected form. In
his wartime work on the philosophy of law (Esquisse d’une phénoménologique du
droit), he characterizes it as the perfect form of the legal state (Kojève 1981). In the
notes that he added to the later editions of Introduction, his picture of the End of
History is more ambivalent. Struggle for recognition must end when there are no
significant differences between people. At the same time, the technology created by
capitalism will make work unnecessary. In the future world, human beings are
completely satisfied. In a sense, they cease to be active subjects and return to
animal-like existence. The End of History is the inevitable outcome of the tendencies
which characterize the modern world. Whether it is capitalist or socialist, is, for
Kojève, less important.
Kojève’s influence, especially in France, has been enormous (Auffret 1990;
Devlin 2004). Both existentialists and poststructuralists owe much to him. Maurice
Alexandre Kojève 3

Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan and Georges Bataille were his students, and the
“Hegel” discussed and criticized by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel
Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Louis Althusser is essentially Hegel read through
Kojèvian lenses (Butler 1987; Roman-Lagerspetz 2009; Yar 2001). Despite their
many differences the French philosophers have generally concentrated on the
master-slave parts of the Phenomenology, accepted the pervasive role of the notions
of desire and negativity, and seen the birth of the human subject as a violent event
and the relation between the Self and the Other as a perpetual conflict. Moreover,
they have thought that universal recognition would mean the end of history. Howe-
ver, unlike Kojève they have conceived the supposedly Hegelian idea of the End as a
totalizing utopia, as something that cannot and should not be realized. The only
remaining alternative is, for most of them, an endless struggle for recognition.
Many commentators – for example Patrick Riley (1981); Drury (1994) – have
criticized Kojève’s reading of Hegel as one-sided and arbitrary. Hegel’s Master and
Slave-figures are not usually interpreted as concrete historical individuals. Kojève
does not explain why mutual recognition within the class of Masters (which does not
appear in Hegel’s Phenomenology) leaves the Masters unsatisfied, or why human
beings with their perpetual desire for prestige would nevertheless become satisfied at
the End of History. Still, despite its many idiosyncrasies, Kojève’s interpretation
remains interesting. By focusing on the notion of recognition, he opened the road for
a new way to read Hegel and helped to see the continuous relevance of Hegelian
philosophy.

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