Kojève and Law: A Critical Examination

The book brings into relief Kojève’s original contributions as a legal thinker through a series of critical dialogues and debates about law and right between Kojève and other influential contributors to legal scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. The book brings into relief Kojève’s original contributions as a legal thinker through a series of critical dialogues and debates about law and right between Kojève and other influential contributors to legal scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. These critical dialogues and debates are comparative in character and range from factual ones—such as Kojève’s dialogues and debates with Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt—to hypothetical ones—such as Kojève’s dialogues and debates with Plato, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Vladimir Solovyov, Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, Ivan Ilyin, Evgeny Pashukanis, Ernst Bloch, Edmund Husserl, and Hannah Arendt. Spotlighting Kojève’s distinct contributions to legal scholarship, while also showcasing his broader influence across a range of disciplines—including philosophy, political theory, sociology, law, and transnational studies—the book includes original contributions from eminent editors, translators, and biographers of Kojève, as well as from historians of legal and political thought, specialists on global trade and private international law, statelessness, and public international law. Kojève and Law will appeal to legal historians, legal theorists, political philosophers, sociologists of law, as well as historians of philosophy and political thought, and to graduate students in philosophy, law, and the history of political thought.