Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Agora Paperback Editions)

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Summary: Brilliant and lucid, if not 'purist', reading of Hegel
Review: As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger one (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 can 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. I have also never read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the Concept 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 as the Absolute Subject constructing itself rationally via reflection on it's Object-negating activity (creativity in transforming the given or present), not in the classical notion of a rational Time as existing somehow outside or independentaly of a Subject.

Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between Subject and Object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the absolute identity of the Object itself. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the truer-to-Hegel sense that the Object is necessarily different from the Subject to ensure the ability of the Subject to realize itself as Self, as free Subject of Object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's 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 certainly further enlightened as to the nature of 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.

My own conclusion at the moment is that both Hegel and the existentialist school following him ala Heidegger and Kojeve can be understood as essentially philosophers of subjectivity in the Western tradition who have exhausted the questioning of the Self about it's nature. As our great contemporary philosopher in the Continental tradtion Jurgen Habermas has noted, it's high time to move beyond the philosophy of the monological subject. For fresh thinking in this area and where to pick up the pieces after Hegel, Heidegger, Kojeve, etc. (rather than taking the nihilistic road of 'post-modernism') I highly recommend Habermas's _The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_. Habermas as successor to this line of thought is convincingly stated in the opening chapter "Modernity's Consciousness of Time and It's Need For Self-Reassurance" and in his call for moving on to a paradigm of "Intersubjectivity" and Reason understood anew as Communicative Action.

Rating:
Summary: Abridged!
Review: 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.

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Summary: Absolutely Fabulous
Review: 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."

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Summary: Makes Hegel easy to read, but there's a catch
Review: I ordered this book for a graduate seminar not on Hegel, but on Kojeve.

As other reviewers point out, Hegel here is seen through Heidegger philosophy -- how this affected French philosophy as a result is interesting but...

I came to this book with very little training in Western philosophy (I'm in Japanese Literature) -- much less Philosophy -- and found the book was quite easy to read and understand Hegel's principles. Kojeve takes them too far but if you read this book with some knowledge of Hegel or another book on him, you'll probably do fine. The English translation (of this French introduction to the German philosopher!) is very clear and stays with you.

Even though the class is over, this book will stay on my shelf for future reference.

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Summary: Introduction to the Reading of Kojeve
Review: Kojeve joins a long list of quasi-Marxists who try to take a materialist interpretation of Hegel. Marx's approach, that Hegel needed to be turned upside down to be useful, is also Kojeve's approach. This is not a genuine study in Hegel but it is perhaps the most famous quasi-study of Hegel. It was extremely influential in the early 20th century, because as Jean-Paul Sartre said in his SEARCH FOR A METHOD, the Universities in Europe in those days were so terrified of Marx that they refused to teach anything Dialectic (and they did not believe Hegel's own words that he was a Christian thinker). Kojeve tries to convince us that Hegel was really an atheist, even though Hegel was clearly a theologian to be reckoned with (e.g. Kung recognizes Hegel as a modern Aquinas). Kojeve just didn't read Hegel deeply at all -- he took all of his cues from Marx. The 20th century intelligensia cannot be understood apart from Kojeve, so this book is important to understand Kojeve. It is pretty well useless if you want to know about Hegel.

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Summary: the one and only introduction to hegel
Review: 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.