Alexandre Kojève

An Intellectual Biography

Ebook
On sale Nov 11, 2025 | 176 Pages | 9781804296868

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Unravelling the mystery of Alexandre Kojève

In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Kojève was fascinated with Hegel’s dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Kojève drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly ‘natural’ rights.

Groys reveals a Kojève with a unique perspective on our political capacities and human condition.
Introduction: What does it mean to be human?

I. History as Self-Negation
1. Struggle for Recognition
2. The Self-Reflection
3. The Anthropogenic Desire

II. From Sophia to Stalin and Back
1. Political Androgyny
2. Paradisal Work
3. Napoleon
4. Stalin
5. The Sage
6. The Working State
7. History as Magic

III. The Giving Empire
1. The Christian Empire
2. The Ideocratic State
3. The Latin Empire
4. Colonialism and the Giving Empire
5. Bataille and Marshall Plan

IV. Becoming a Sage
1. Painting the Totality
2. Visualization of Logos

Epilogue: How to remain human after the End of History?
Boris Groys lives and works in Berlin. He has taught as Professor at the universities in Germany (ZKM), USA (NYU), UK (Courtauld) and some others. He has curated many exhibitions including an exhibition of Kojève’s photography (shown in BAK (Utrecht), Palais Tokyo (Paris), Gwangju Biennial (South Korea), OKAT (Shenzhen, China).

His previous books include: Art Power, 2008; An Introduction to Antiphilosophy, 2012; On the New, 2014

About

Unravelling the mystery of Alexandre Kojève

In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Kojève was fascinated with Hegel’s dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Kojève drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly ‘natural’ rights.

Groys reveals a Kojève with a unique perspective on our political capacities and human condition.

Table of Contents

Introduction: What does it mean to be human?

I. History as Self-Negation
1. Struggle for Recognition
2. The Self-Reflection
3. The Anthropogenic Desire

II. From Sophia to Stalin and Back
1. Political Androgyny
2. Paradisal Work
3. Napoleon
4. Stalin
5. The Sage
6. The Working State
7. History as Magic

III. The Giving Empire
1. The Christian Empire
2. The Ideocratic State
3. The Latin Empire
4. Colonialism and the Giving Empire
5. Bataille and Marshall Plan

IV. Becoming a Sage
1. Painting the Totality
2. Visualization of Logos

Epilogue: How to remain human after the End of History?

Author

Boris Groys lives and works in Berlin. He has taught as Professor at the universities in Germany (ZKM), USA (NYU), UK (Courtauld) and some others. He has curated many exhibitions including an exhibition of Kojève’s photography (shown in BAK (Utrecht), Palais Tokyo (Paris), Gwangju Biennial (South Korea), OKAT (Shenzhen, China).

His previous books include: Art Power, 2008; An Introduction to Antiphilosophy, 2012; On the New, 2014

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