Abstract

The aim of this paper is to bring out the core commitments underlying Kojève’s ontological position. My main claim is that he designs an original ontological framework, which integrates (but also regionalizes) Hegel’s and Heidegger’s analysis, and which can be properly characterized as a “double dualism”. In order to assess this thesis, I discuss Kojève’s relationship to Heidegger and show that: a) on Kojève’s view, Heidegger’s phenomenology is marked by an attenuation of the scope of negativity which gives rise to a tendentially monistic phenomenology; b) for Kojève, Heidegger’s main philosophical innovation is the idea of a dualist ontology. This thesis relies on Kojève’s hermeneutical conjecture that in the unpublished part of Being and Time Heidegger accomplishes a doubling (or a duplication) of ontology.