Alexandre Kojeve Quotes

Russia, Philosopher
April 28, 1902 – June, 4, 1968.

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on 20th-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into twentieth-century continental philosophy. As a statesman in the French government, he was instrumental in the formation of the European Union. Kojève was a close friend of, and was in lifelong philosophical dialogue with, Leo Strauss.

Also known as Statesman

The man who works recognizes his own product in the world that has actually been transformed by his work. He recognizes himself in it, he sees his own human reality in it he discovers and reveals to others the objective reality of his humanity of the originally abstract and purely subjective idea he has of himself.

Alexandre Kojeve
- Man
- Reality
- Recognizes
The bourgeois intellectual neither fights nor works.

Alexandre Kojeve
- Works
- Fights
- Bourgeois

Human life is a comedy-one must play it seriously.

Alexandre Kojeve
- Life
- Comedy
- Seriously
In contrast to the knowledge that keeps man in a passive quietude, Desire dis-quiets him and moves him to action. Born of Desire, action tends to satisfy it, and can do so only by the 'negation,' the destruction or at least the transformation, of the desired object: to satisfy hunger, for example, the food must be destroyed or, in any case, transformed. Thus all action is 'negating'.

Alexandre Kojeve