Atheism

One of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojève was a Russian émigré to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojève wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojève’s thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojève advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority―including philosophy, science, or God―that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism―or theism―is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God’s existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojève’s work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom.

Literature & Fiction

Kojève, Alexandre

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

One of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojève was a Russian émigré to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojève wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojève’s thought.\nRanging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojève advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority―including philosophy, science, or God―that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism―or theism―is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God’s existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojève’s work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom.

Product Description The previous volume of Alexandre Kojève’s (1902–1968) work published by St. Augustine’s Press, The Concept, Time and Discourse (2019), was the introduction to an unfinished magnum opus through which Kojève intended to effectively update Hegelian philosophy. For Kojève, Hegel provides the completion of philosophy’s historical development, with the exception of what Kojève deems an inadequate philosophy of nature. The translation of The Idea of Determinism offers insight into what shape Kojève’s “update” to Hegelian philosophy of nature may have taken. The notion of determinism plays heavily in the philosophy of nature. In the classical age of physics (Newton through Maxwell) it was a commonly held assumption that everything can be predicted, and chance is nonexistent. There was also the belief in the perpetual progress toward absolute precision in scientific measurement. Then in 1814 Laplace set the groundwork for this idea in the modern era: “[If there were] an Intelligence who could know, for a given instant, all the forces with which nature is animated and the relative position of all the beings that compose it—if, moreover, it were vast enough to submit all its data to analysis [in accordance with the laws of nature—it] would embrace in the same formula the motions of the greatest bodies in the universe and those of the slightest atom: nothing would be uncertain for it, and the future, like the past, would be present to its eyes." With dialectical mastery, Kojève examines the implications of these assumptions and finds them wanting, even from within the classical perspective. He then turns to the "modern (quantum) physics" of Planck, Heisenberg and Dirac, which he sees as supporting an epistemological understanding of physical science free of any deterministic assumptions. Kojève also finds it to be rooted in the concrete understanding of physical measurement as an interaction between an observing subject and an observed object, about which statistically accurate predictions can legitimately be made. Kojève was a contemporary and friend to political philosopher Leo Strauss, and influential in the intellectual formation of Allan Bloom and Stanley Rosen. His political career cannot be ignored when attempting to assess the intentions of his philosophical work, which renders it a brand of political philosophy even when making presentations in the field of natural sciences. About the Author Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) was a French philosopher and civil servant noted for his contribution to the philosophy of science and political action. Heavily influenced by Heidegger and Marx, Kojève’s reading of Hegel and treatment of ideology, history and political philosophy remain relevant and compelling, even if often controversial. He is a key figure in 20th century European philosophy. Robert B. Williamson is Tutor Emeritus at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he continues to teach. He is co-author, with Alfred Mollin, of An Introduction to Ancient Greek and the author of articles on Plato’s philosophy and Einstein’s early work on relativity theory.

The Idea of Determinism

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

St. Augustines Press

A compilation of esoteric musings, Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty explores Alexandre Kojève’s philosophical approach to the relationship between art and beauty.\nA teacher to Jacques Lacan, André Breton, and Albert Camus, Kojève defined art as the act of extracting the beautiful from objective reality. His poetic text, “The Concrete Paintings of Kandinsky,” endorses nonrepresentational art as uniquely manifesting beauty. Taking the paintings of his renowned uncle, Wassily Kandinsky, as his inspiration, Kojève suggests that in creating (rather than replicating) beauty, the paintings are themselves complete universes as concrete as the natural world. Kojève’s text considers the utility and necessity of beauty in life, and ultimately poses the involuted question: What is beauty?\nIncluding personal letters between Kandinsky and his nephew, this book further elaborates the unique relationship between artist and philosopher. An introduction by Boris Groys contextualizes Kojève’s life and writings.

Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty (ekphrasis)

Arts & Photography

David Zwirner Books

In The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève’s philosophy of right. It captures its author’s intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.

The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation

Verso

In The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France.\nThis foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil.\nThe Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève’s philosophy of right. It captures its author’s intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.

The Notion of Authority

Kant

Identité et Réalité dans le "Dictionnaire" de Pierre Bayle

Essays & Correspondence

Gallimard]

Introduction à la lecture de Hegel: leçons sur la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit professées de 1933 à 1939 à l'École des Hautes Études (French Edition)

Literary

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Books by Kojève, Alexandre

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kojève, Alexandre. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Atheism

Atheism

The Idea of Determinism

Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty (ekphrasis)

The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation

The Notion of Authority

Kant

Identité et Réalité dans le "Dictionnaire" de Pierre Bayle

Kant

Introduction à la lecture de Hegel: leçons sur la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit professées de 1933 à 1939 à l'École des Hautes Études (French Edition)