Robert Spaemann and the Critique of Alexandre Kojeve‘s Anthropology

Abstract

The paper utilizes a reconstruction of Robert Spaemann’s arguments to critique Alexandre Kojève’s personalism, which is based on a dualistic ontology, and its political implications. Spaemann’s positions are used to prove that the French philosopher’s attempt to interpret the concept of person in a dualistic ontology establishes the dialectic of naturalism and spiritualism, in which the idea of person disappears. This allows us to clarify the fundamental disagreement between Kojève and Leo Strauss: reflections on human nature are inseparable from a teleological understanding of life. Spaemann’s philosophical project presents an opportunity to open up a new perspective on Kojève’s political theory, which is structured by a dialectic in which anthropological spiritualistic personalism in the political sphere transforms into a naturalistic universalism. Spaemann’s arguments allow us to conclude that Kojève’s political philosophy, which is based on the concept of recognition, and in which there is no place for the idea of human nature, leads to the position of totalitarian naturalistic universalism.