Kojeve's Interpretation of Hegel's Master Slave Dialectic
Known for being an idiosyncratic interpreter of Hegel, Russian-born French philosopher Alexandre Kojeve brought about the "Hegelian turn" in 20th century French philosophy through his series of lectures on "The Phenomenology of Spirit". He read Hegel through the lens of both Marx and Heidegger, culminating in what is now regarded as the original interpretation of Hegel. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, best known for his contributions of the Hegelian triad (theis, anti-thesis, synthesis), philosophy of spirit, master-slave dialectic, among others. Hegel thought of human history as the history of thought. Humans try to understand themselves in relation to the world. Though the world started off with unity, it wasn't long before humans started understanding themselves as an "I". A form of identity was given to oneself, which introduced dualism in what was originally a unified world. So, history becomes a history of reason, wherei...