Contexualizing Individual and Social Relations

Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel is both original and arresting: he reads human history through the lense of Hegel's master-slave dialectic, and he sees the desire for recognition as the distinguishing characteristic of humanity. Human beings demand to be recognized and respected as free and equal individuals, and it is only when we are mutually recognized that we can lead fully and genuinely satisfying lives. At the beginning of our historical development, however, human beings, while demanding that others recognize their individual humanity, refuse to offer that recognition in return, and this leads to a struggle for recognition or a battle for pure prestige. At some point in this struggle, Kojeve argues, one of the warrior's desire for self-preservation overcomes his desire to risk his life for recognition, and he thereafter becomes the slave of the victorious master, recognizing his human dignity and working for him. But while the master may have won in the short run, over the long run the slave's recognition of the master is not satisfying precisely because the master does not recognize the dignity of the slave. The slave is able to progress historically through that very activity that distinguished him as a slave, namely work or labor: the products of the slave's work become an objective confirmation of his own reality and worth.
Kojeve traces the development of slave consciousness through such historical stages as Christianity and capitalism: in the former, God becomes a new and absolute master, but one who now recognizes the unique individuality and worth of all persons; in the latter, private property or capital becomes the new master, but one which aids and encourages the working slave's on-going transformation and technological conquest of nature. According to Kojeve, the end of history (understood as humanity's dialectical transformation and development) occurs during the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon. The worker-warriors of Napoleon's army are willing to risk their lives for recognition, but only in order to create the egalitarian conditions whereby all individuals will recognize and be recognized as dignified and autonomous citizens. The only remaining task to accomplish historically is the world-wide propagation of the fundamental ideas of the Revolution, the achievement of which will result in what Kojeve calls a universal and homogenous state. This final or end state is universal because it encompasses all of humanity, with no arbitrary distinctions or advantages based on nationality, race, class, or sex; and it is homogenous because all citizens will enjoy equal rights and duties through the promulgation of a genuinely equitable system of justice.
Of course, Kojeve was fully aware that with the end of history, so too comes the end of humanity properly so-called, and in 1968, Kojeve added a long and famous footnote to his lectures on Hegel stressing the implications of this fact. The full satisfaction of human beings through mutual recognition means that human beings will become or only remain alive as clever animals in the end state, and consequently all 'human' activities will once again become purely natural as we live in a state of abundance, security, and full contentment. Although Kojeve never said so explicitly, it would seem that the completion of history might entail the reign of Nietzsche's last man.