Work, recognition and subjectivization: some remarks about the modernity of Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel

Abstract

From the analytical point of view of Hegel's philosophical anthropology, in Kojève's interpretation, work is an existential structure through which the dual process of subjectification and socialization unfolds. For Hegel, however, this process is not taken for granted: its possibility is understood in terms of the culmination of man's conquest of humanity, taking as a point of departure the relation of mastery to servitude and the undertaking to transform this relation precisely from within the perspective of servitude. The goal of this article is to reconstruct the conceptual framework of this philosophical moment, to our mind an indispensible precondition for the apperception of our modern societies' functioning at the most fundamental level, to the extent that they consider themselves to be ‘work based societies.’

Keywords

• Hegel
• Kojève
• work
• servant
• master
• anthropology