Abstract:
Stemming from a reading of Hegel’s account of the struggle for recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Kojève argued that death is the central notion of Hegel’s philosophy. I will discuss several themes in relation to this claim of Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel, namely the themes of freedom, individuality, and historicity. I will also discuss Kojève’s reading that Hegel rejects both all conceptions of the afterlife, and too the belief in the afterlife as a manifestation of the “unhappy consciousness”. I will point out flaws of Kojève’s interpretation throughout.
Keywords:
Hegel, Kojève, Death, Freedom, Individuality, Historicity, Afterlife
How to cite:
Inwood, Michael J. “Death, Hegel, and Kojève.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 1, no. 2 (2017): 68–77. https://doi.org/10.26319/2916.
Author:
Michael J. Inwood
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter 555, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG, United Kingdom
References:
Aristotle. Categories and De Interpretatione. Translated by John Lloyd Ackrill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Darwin, Charles. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Volume 8: 1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Epictetus. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. London: Penguin, 2008.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Early Theological Writings. Translated by Thomas Malcolm Knox and Richard Kroner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Natural Law. Translated by Thomas Malcolm Knox. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1975.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Volumes I-III. Translated by Ebenezer Brown Speirs and John Scott Burdon-Sanderson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by Thomas Malcolm Knox. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962.
Hintikka, Jaakko. Time and Necessity: Studies in Aristotle’s Theory of Modality. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.
Inwood, Michael J. “Hegel on Death”. International Journal of Moral and Social Studies, (I, 1986): 109-122.
Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel. Paris: Gallimard, 1947.
Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the “Phenomenology of Spirit”. Edited by Allan Bloom and translated by James H. Nichols. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Partenie, Catalin. Plato’s Myths. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Open Access Statement:
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.