A Famous Enigma

Until 2025, the name “Alexandre Kojève” was a paradox. A philosopher often invoked yet rarely read – a famous enigma. For decades, Kojève’s mythical reputation rested on rumors and anecdotes orbiting his Hegel seminar of the 1930s. This year, two intellectual biographies appeared in English at once: Marco Filoni’s The Life and Thought of Alexandre Kojève and Boris Groys’ Alexandre Kojève: An Intellectual Biography. Approaching Kojève from different angles, both restore him as a thinker in his own right, not just as a source of influence for students like Jacques Lacan and Georges Bataille, who would later turn their backs on his Hegelianism.