Introduction to the Reading of Hegel

As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger reading (meaning it incorporates or synthesizes these post-Hegel, though influenced-by-Hegel, strains of thought). It is therefore scorned by some Hegel 'purists' like Mr. Trejo below. However, having read quite a few commentaries on and interpretations of the Phenomenology, I would say that this one is the most well-written, in the sense that it illuminates some very difficult Hegelian concepts (like "Spirit" itself) in a searingly direct manner. Also, I have not read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the concept of concepts which brings closure to the riddle of Western metaphysics. I would agree with the 'purists' in not taking this book as the 'definitive' interpretation of Hegel -- it can't excuse not reading Hegel in the original, or other commentaries -- but I would call it essential within the spectrum of Hegelian thought. Interestingly, this book shows Hegel, though famously critical of Kant, to be essentially the extender of the Kantian philosophy to it's logical conclusion which is the completion of the concept of experience, identified as time itself (zeitgeist). That is, human time, initiated by the emergence of specifically human desires (i.e. desire for recognition), the absolute subject of humanity which, in transcendental terms, constructs itself rationally via reflection on its own object-negating or given-negating activity or creativity. Humanity invents clock time after reflecting on our own ability to temporally transform the given and so to measure 'progress'. This is categorically different than the classical notion of a rational time that would exist somehow outside or independently of thought -- for Hegel that idea is the illusion of a confused thinker. Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary historical development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between the subject and object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the 'absolute identity' of the object. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the idealistic sense that the object is necessarily different from the subject to ensure the ability of a subject to realize itself as a self, as a free subject of object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's 'merely aesthetic' Philosophy of Nature and it's more cosmic attempt at spiritualizing the notion of matter. Either way, as many Hegel commentator's have noted, one is left, though undoubtedly further enlightened regarding the nature of reflective subjectivity, with a sense that there is still something 'out there' and unknown, ala Kant's thing-in-itself. This can be understood as the Heidegger-influenced side of Kojeve's reading. Most contemporary Continental thought is in agreement here that Hegel failed to metaphysically supersede Kant

Many people criticize Kojeve for misinterpreting Hegel. This misses the point. Kojeve's reading of Hegel is anthropocentric which, as Kojeve well knows, was not Hegel's intent. This book shouldn't be read as a commentary on Hegel (for that look to Hypolite) but rather as an original work of philosophy in it's own right. It should be read as a work of philosophy and attributed all the respect that great works of philosophy deserve. But then if you're reading this you probably already know this.

Well--the one and only, for my purposes anyway. However Kojeve's reading of Hegel is "refracted," as one reviewer put it, his lectures were the means through which Hegel entered 20th century French thinking, and this book is important if only to understand where people like Sartre, Queneau, Camus, Bataille, Lacan, etc. come from--and if we add Girard and Derrida, we can also add De Man and American deconstruction. This is an impressive list. The title is very apt: it is an introduction to Hegel, no more perhaps but certainly no less.And it is a very good introduction. To summarize what is already a summary is a discredit to Kojeve, and I won't go there. Suffice it to say that I have not seen a clearer reading of how Hegel arrives at the master-slave dialectic, nor have I seen a better and more concise explanation of human desire.Students of philosophy should treat this book the way Kojeve clearly intended it: as a guide to a further study and a more independent reading of Hegel. For students of literature, such as myself, this may well be all the Hegel you'll ever need, and I still find it remarkable how the lectures of one semi-reclusive scholar (Kojeve didn't publish these lectures himself) influenced a whole generation of writers, who in turn ended up defining post-WW2 European thought.

First of all, the editors left out the most important essay, the essay on work--and by the way, the most clearly "Marxist" of Kojeve's essays. Hmmmm. Kojeve started teaching this course after losing most of his money after investing in a cheese company called "le vache qui rit," and taking the class over from his distant relative Koyre, who is praised in a uncited aside for providing all the ideas contained in the work (there is a remarkable biography of Kojeve by Auffret). The book is nothing if not crystalline clear, the author a remarkable expositor of an impossible author. The most interesting thing that he does is provide a table in which he fits Plato, Spinoza, etc., as if each chose one of a few alternatives of thought, and in which, it is important to note, there is no going beyond (hence Kojeve is a commentator). All that he asks is that you grant his not unreasonable premises: from there all the rest follows.

I adore this book. It is one of my favorite XX century books. This does not mean I agree with all its ideas, since many are really are so monstrous. But I don't think Kojeve himself agreed with them. I think he was actually appalled by what the logic of his theories required of him--his vision of humanity ending in sci-fi style "animal-snobs" is a horrible ideological terminus, as bad as 1984. But its also fascinating. And I really enjoyed Kojeve's great wit and philosophical rigor as he makes his tortured, tormented journey to "the end of history."