L'autorité en crise Une confrontation entre Alexandre Kojève et Hannah Arendt

Although at first glance the profiles of Hannah Arendt and Alexandre Kojève could not be more
different from each other, the respective interests of the two philosophers converged around the same
time on the notion of authority. In this article I aim to conduct a comparison between the two,
emphasizing that their reflections find their starting point in a condition of the crisis of authority in the
present, linked to political modernity and the loss of relationship with the past. In the first part I will
show that, starting from the common purpose of diagnosing the present, they agree on the definition of
what authority is. After presenting the four pure types of authority identified by Kojève and clarifying
Arendt’s conception of Roman authority, I will examine the relationship between tradition and modern
revolutions. For both, this represents the framework from which to think about the crisis of authority.
In this perspective, the focus will be on Montesquieu, to whom they both attribute an important role,
but from an opposite point of view. In conclusion, I will emphasize that, despite their similarities,
Arendt and Kojève differ markedly in the way they conceive politics, power and propaganda.