Атеизм без свободы: проблема гетерономности эго в философии Александра Кожева

Философия. Журнал Высшей школы экономики. 2023. Т. 7. № 3. С. 98–128.

Голубов М. Д., Курилович И. С.

The article deals with the problem of heteronomy of the subject of self-consciousness within the framework of the philosophical project of the French neo-Hegelian Alexandre Kojève. Kojève’s atheistic philosophy aims at restoring to man the dignity of a free being in the face of the absence of a Christian God. To this end Kojève resorts to an original reading of Hegel-Heideggerian phenomenology. On the basis of the latter he proves, first, the origin of human self-consciousness from desire and not from reason, as classical philosophy believed, and second, the fundamental finality (mortality) of human. The paper demonstrates how Kojève derives the emergence of human self-consciousness from a non-natural desire for recognition, as well as which philosophical tradition he addresses his critique of the non-essentialist approach to man. These theses, centered primarily against the figure of Descartes, are meant to prove that self-awareness is autonomous, which according to Kojève is consistent with the atheist intuition of the non-existence of God. In his view, the contrary theistic thesis makes self-consciousness heteronomous: it is not man who thinks and acts, but an infinite God, while man is completely deprived of agency as a subject. Our paper offers an analysis of his argumentation based on texts written over the years. The analysis of freedom demonstrates that Kojève only proves human freedom in one narrow sense of the word. The criticism of the theistic position does not necessarily lead to a proof of the autonomy of the ego. Furthermore, on the basis of Kojève’s own conditions, the conclusion is drawn that the Christian God is not the only possible condition for the heteronomy of the ego, which brings Kojève closer to the «masters of suspicion».

Keywords: желание, самосознание, феноменология, atheism, атеизм, desire, self-consciousness, Рене Декарт, Александр Кожев, Alexandre Kojève, Phenomenology, René Descartes, autonomy of ego, автономность эго

Publication based on the results of: The Development of Transcendentalism in Russian Thought: from Classical Models of Description toward to Soviet Models (2022)