Alexandre Kojeve - by S Drury (Paperback)

About the Book

An enigmatic figure whose influence on postmodernism is better known than understood, Alexandre Kojeve formulated a wild if not hypnotic melange of ideas. This book reveals the nature of Kojeve's Hegelianism and the extraordinary influence it has had both on French and American intellectuals. (Philosophy)

Book Synopsis

Alexandre Kojve (1902-1968) was Hegel's most famous interpreter, reading Hegel through the eyes of Marx and Heidegger simultaneously. The result was a wild if not hypnotic mlange of ideas. In this book, Drury reveals the nature of Kojve's Hegelianism and the extraordinary influence it has had on French postmodernists on the left (Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, and Michel Foucault) and American postmodernists on the right (Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, and Francis Fukuyama). According to Drury, Kojve followed Hegel in thinking that reason has triumphed in the course of history, but it is a cold, soulless, instrumental, and uninspired rationalism that has conquered and disenchanted the world. Drury maintains that Kojve's conception of modernity as the fateful triumph of this arid rationality is the cornerstone of postmodern thought. Kojve's picture of the world gives birth to a dark romanticism that manifests itself in a profound nostalgia for what reason has banished - myth, madness, disorder, spontaneity, instinct, passion, and virility. In Drury's view, these ideas romanticize the gratuitous violence and irrationalism that characterize the postmodern world.

From the Back Cover

Alexandre Kojeve is an enigmatic figure whose influence on postmodernism is better known than understood. Reading Hegel through the eyes of Marx and Heidegger simultaneously, Kojeve formulated a wild if not hypnotic melange of ideas. In this book, Drury reveals the nature of Kojeve's Hegelianism and the extraordinary influence it has had both on French and American intellectuals.

According to Drury, Kojeve believed that history was a tragedy in which a cold, instrumental and uninspired rationalism has conquered and disenchanted the world. Drury maintains that Kojeve's conception of modernity as the fateful triumph of this arid rationality is the cornerstone of postmodern thought.

Kojeve's picture of the world gives birth to a dark romanticism that manifests itself in a profound nostalgia for what reason has banished-- myth, madness, disorder, spontaneity, instinct, passion, and virility. In Drury's view, these ideas romanticize the gratuitous violence and irrationalism that characterize the postmodern world.