Alexandre Kojève

In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Koj ve, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Koj ve was fascinated with Hegel's dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Koj ve drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly 'natural' rights.

Groys reveals a Koj ve with a unique perspective on our political capacities and human condition.