LA FAMIGLIA E LA SUA AUTORITÀ
Federico Italo Gatti

The person of Alexandre Kojève has been shrouded for almost a century by an aura of mystery because of the numerous representative clichés that have been attributed to him over the years: from the ancient “philosophe du dimanche”, given to him by Queneau, to the “grandson of Kandisnkij” that shows his lineage, to the more classic “hegelian” however adjectivated as “heterodox” or “existentialist”, up to the various secret adviser, genius lent to diplomacy, spy of the KGB. The only way to avoid getting lost inside the smokescreen of the myth Kojève, myth that the Russian philosopher himself helped create, is to remain extremely adherent to the dictate of his texts, avoiding cataloguing his thought within the philosophical schools dominant during the 20th century or developing his theories in the light of his biographical events. The purpose of this paper is, in the first place, to analyze the Father-type authority and to show how it operates within family relationships. Secondly, the reciprocal relations between the family in Kojève’s thought and in Hegel’s reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. The paper aims to show how Kojève, while safeguarding the importance of tradition and its direct transmission, radically criticize any naturalistic approach regarding the authentic meaning of the family.