Christian Origins of Modern Political Anthropology: Alexandre Kojève’s Position on Leo Strauss’s Problem

The paper presents an attempt to solve the problem of Leo Strauss’s statements about the role of Christianity and the category of individuality in la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes by looking at it from Alexandre Kojève’s point of view. His interpretation, which was developed in a close cooperation with Strauss, allows us to gain a better understanding of the relationship between Christianity and the anthropology of the moderns. According to Kojève’s reconstruction of the history of philosophy, Christian understanding of humanity establishes the indivisible unity of the three fundamental anthropological categories – individuality, historicity and freedom. It marks a rejection of the ancient idea of law and provides the anthropological framework for the development of modern political theory. Kojève’s interpretation shows that the two different meanings of Strauss’s statement about the category of individuality are in fact inseparable – thinking in terms of unique and unrepeatable events emerges with Christianity, and moral individualism, the belief in the absolute value of each individual human being, is also of Christian origin.