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    Kojeve - Hegel Marx and Christianity

    Uploaded by

    Claudio Lartigue

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Borrower: RAPID:VZQ Call #: JA26 .157 v.1-2 1970-72 Lending String: Location: PERIODICAL RM AVAILABLE Patron: Journal Title: Interpretation. ODYSSEY Charge Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Maxcost: Month/Year: Summer 1970Pages: 21-42 Shipping Address: NEW: Pratt Institute Library Article Author: Kojéve, Alexandre Fax: Article Title: Hegel, Marx, and Christianity Ariel: Imprint: ILL Number: -15798985 {ANON A Vassar College Interlibrary Loan ILLiad TN: 333239 | From VXW-Vassar College Libraries ILL If there is a problem with the scanned pages please contact us within three days to have the necessary item re-sent. Contact: Julia Yu ILL@vassar.edu 845-437-5949 a Interpretation hold of something reasonable between philosophy and polities. Socrates has successfully vindicated Euthydemos and what he stands f Kriton neither denies nor admits this. Instead he turns to the subject of hi greatest and constant predicament: his two sons, and especially his oldest s Kritoboulos. Whenever he meets Socrates, he becomes aware of the mount importance of education but he cannot find an educator worthy the name. As a consequence, he does not know how to urge on Kritobot toward philosophy: he does not dream of asking Socrates to apply his p treptic skill to Kritoboulos nor does Socrates offer it. One could say that Socrates had candidly exhibited the limitation of his protreptic art; yet hhad at least tried to apply it to Kleinias. A more plausible reason is that Krit Boulos! nature Is fi forthe purpose than Keio, in other wo ates’ daimonion holds hi . as distingui Socrates dainonin holdshim backin the cxseof Kritoboulor a disinguis Socrates reminds Kriton of a fact to be observed in regard t i the fact thatthe good practitioners are rare just as this i no reson fy rejecting money-making or rhetore, it is no reason for rejecting philosophy, ‘One must carefully examine philosophy itself. If t seems to be a bad thing, Kriton must keep everyone, not only his sons, away from it; but in the ope Penis case the opposite course isto be taken. * __ We are still to much inclined to see the confict between Socra ‘the sophists” in the light ofthe eonict between the thinker of te Restore tion and the thinkers who prepared the French Revolution ot took its side In the Euthydemus Socrates takes the side of the two brothers against Ktesip- ppos and Kriton. Socrates was not the mortal enemy of the sophists nor were the sophists the mortal enemies of Socrates. According to Socrates, the greatest enemy of philosophy, the greatest sophist, is the political multitude (Republic 4925-26), ie. the enactor of the Athenian laws. they are aware of the radical diffe 2 HEGEL, MARX AND CHRISTIANITY* ALEXANDRE KouBVE. translated by Hilal Gildin** ‘An unwarned reader could be misled by the title of Mr. Niel’s book. In fact, what is involved is not an abstract analysis of the Hegelian category of Mediation (Vermittlung). It is the whole concrete content of Hegel's philo- sophy that is setforth. And it must be said that the author has executed a real tour de force by summarizing in less than 400 pages almost the totality of the Hegelian writings. ‘Moreover, the title chosen by Mr. Niel is perfectly legitimate, and it bears witness to a profound understanding of the general structure of Hegel’s thought. Indeed, to say Mediation is to say Dialectic, for all that is mediated is dialectical, and all that is dialectical is mediated. Now in Hegel Dialectic is anything but a method of thought; it is not an artifice of philosophical expo- sion MED the very ite, and it only penetrates into philosophical thought to the extent that phil losophical thought correctly describes this concrete reality taken as a whole. To analyze Media- tion (i.e., Dialectic) in Hegel's philosophy is therefore to analyze that philos- ‘ophy itself in its whole concrete content. And that is precisely what Mr. Niel does in his book. ‘One might, nevertheless, regret the fact that the author did not devote a chapter to a more ot less formal analysis of the very notion of Mediation or Dialectic. And I must say that wherever he incidentally speaks of this notion in general terms what he says about itis not, in my opinion, absolutely correct (see especially p. 70, note 10; pp. 102-04 and p. 357). ‘The relative lack of understanding of Dialectic in Hegel does not prevent Mr. Niel from giving a perfectly correct summary of the dialectical philoso- phy which he sets forth. This lack of understanding is, however, very grave in the sense that it inspires commentaries which give a fundamentally false meaning to correctly summarized theories. This apparent paradox is ex- plained by the fact that Hegelian dialectical texts are necessarily, and some- This long review essay of Henri Niel’s De la Médiation dans la philosophie de Hegel (Paris, 1945) originally appeared in Critique, I (1946), 339-366, The permission of Critique to publish an English translation of this essay is gratefully acknowledged. ** Translator's note: Double brackets and double parentheses represent insertions by the translator, Other brackets and parentheses are reproduced from the original. In the places where “lutte” could not be translated by “fight” and “dépasser” by “surpass” the French words have been supplied between double parentheses or double brackets. James H. Nichols’ recent translation of Kojéve (Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, ed. Allan. ‘Bloom [New York, 1969]) has furnished the translator with many useful suggestions. Jonathan Mandelbaum’s helpful advice is also gratefully acknowledged. = Interpretation times intentionally, ambiguous (as Mr. Niel himself acknowledges, fe example pp. 17, 214 and 332). The same text, whether it be directly quoted. correctly summarized, can mean very different things depending on the in which itis read. For instance, Mr. Niel reads the texts and his own sur ties in such a way as to give them, with many reservations, moreover (s PP. 214, 351 and 369), a theistic and even a theological leaning. Now realty these summarized texts set forth « QRGUIGIAINEMTDlcconty, It must be said, however, that this essential misunderstanding, which lasted for as long as Hegelianism exists, is only possible because Hegeli atheism has a very special character. Hegel is not atheistic in the usual of the word, for he does not reject the Christian notion of God and does n even deny its reality. And so, one often finds theological formulas in Hegelis Philosophy. But, in the deepest sense, this philosophy is neverthel radically atheistic and the unique reality the Christian notion of taken in the totalit of his historical evolution accomplished in the midst of nature, this totalit being completed (= perfect) through the Wise Man (Hegel), who reveals it itself to itself in and through the absolute Knowledge which he has of it. And itis enough to correctly interpret the ‘very notions of Mediation or of Dialectic (or, if you prefer, of Negativity, of Time, of History) to understand that it cannot be otherwise. In what follows, I will try to recall the genuine Meaning of the Hegelian _ Dist Mediation) in order to permit the reader who does not know it to understand correctly the excellent summary which Mr. Niel has made of the work of Hegel, in spite of the generally debatable commentaries which surround the expositions properly so called. The vulgar sciences deal with abstractions. For they are concerned with Particular entities which they isolate “by abstraction” from the whole real universe which these entities in reality form part of. Hegelian philosophy, on the other hand, or more accurately absolute Knowledge, is concerned with. Being in its concrete reality. In other words, this Knowledge does not ab- stract from anything (not even from itself) and reveals (— describes) the totality of what is. One can therefore say that absolute Knowledge has To- tality asits “object”; this Knowledge does nothing but analyze and reconstruct Totality out of its constitutive elements (Momente) which are isolated by analysis. But the totality of what is also implies the Knowledge which reveals this totality, to the extent that this Knowledge is itself real. One can therefore Just as well say that Totality, real concrete Being, is at the same time revealed “object” and revealing “subject.” And it is precisely for this reason that conerete Being is Torality; or, and this is the same thing, that it is the True (das Wahre), or Concept (Begriff), or absolute Idea. However, in saying that real concrete Being is Totality, Concept, or Idea, ‘Hegel is enunciating something other than this truism, which reminds us that the conerete real is constituted by all that exists. The term Totality has, in Hegel, a technical, or, if you please, a “dialectical” meaning. Totality is the Hegel, Marx and Christianity 2B hess of Kdentiy (= thesis) and of Negativity (= antithesis) And it is Precisely because real concrete Being is not only Identity (with itself) but al 0 Negativity (of itself) that this Being i at the same time * et hand: ct" that is to say, being revealing ite to itself through (discursive) Thought and thought which realizes itself in being (as truth) and thinks ise in peaking ofits own concrete realty or of the totality of what is The totality of what is does not remain eternally identical to is ketal it always remains what itis, namely Totty (taken as Mdentity, But it alo is always other than itis it therefore negates what itis, it negates itself as itis and itis not Totaly (Caken as Negativity) excep asthe totality ofits successive auto-negations. In other words, rel concrete Being changes and is nothing other than (is the same as) the totality of its real changes. That sure, Or else, again, Totality is the nihilarion of the Nothing- i ‘through the annihilation of (identical) Being: it is the Tempo- es ene space which ony ito the extent.that itis amit as time by becoming past One can also say that th subtracts the being from Being. For past being doesnot difer irom present being except for the fac that it not any longer, just as future being isnot yet, Bu neither does the concept "Being” ifr from Being itself except forthe fact that it snot i the same way that Being is. One can therefore say that temporalization Negativity) transforms Being (= Identity) into the Concept of Being, so that Totalty (= Identity + Negativity), since itis Conceptovhichis or Being-which-is-conceived, is, in effect, at the same time “subject” an ifs” being and thought, in a word, absolute Hea or Knowledges Hegel expresses ths “dialectical” (~ trintarian) conception of real crete Being also by saying that this Being isnot ony in itself (an sich = Thesis of Kdentity), but also for itself (fr sich; = Antthesiso» Negativity: itis in and for itself (an und fiir sich; = Synthesis or Totality). epi also says that real concrete Being is always dialecticllysuppressed (aufge- oben): in and through the Antithess, Being is suppressed or negated ‘Thesis or as given Being; but just as is preserved in non-A, negated Being is presered in its being, forthe Antithess also is finaly, just as non-A i

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