Back to the end of history: an ethical interpretation of the posthistorical condition in Alexandre Kojève

Abstract

The following work aims to analyze and interpret Alexandre Kojève’s theory of the end of history. The context of this research is mainly based on the footnote Kojève added in the second edition (1968) of his book Introduction à la lecture de Hegel. This footnote has led to intense debates and important philosophical questions. In this footnote, the paradigm of Japanese snobbery is taken as an alternative to the final animalization of posthistorical man. In this work, specifically, the kojevian rectification about the end of history will be put in relation to Kojève’s work as a whole, his discussions with authors of his time and the references to the philosophical tradition. All this in order to unravel the ethical implications of the survival of the human in the end of history and its relationship with contemporary postmetaphisical approaches.

Keywords

• fin de la historia
• forma de vida
• animalidad
• humanidad
• dialéctica
• ética
• snob