Secularism stuck in the end-times: from Alexandre Kojève to the recent Messianic turn

In current Western philosophical discourse, secularism appears to be at a cross-roads. There has been much written about the return of religion into politics and the public sphere, as well as the rise of fundamentalism and new spiritualisms. At the same time, there has been a revaluation of political theology and a critical ex-amination of the legacy of secularism, with even the suggestion that we are al-ready in a “post-secular” age. In this article, I argue one of the key modes of secu-larisation that continues to shape such discussions originates in part from a framework initiated by the Russian-born French Hegelian Alexandre Kojève. At the centre of Kojève’s interpretation of Georg W.F. Hegel’s philosophical idealism is the doctrine of the end of history, which Francis Fukuyama famously appropri-ated after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I will propose that there is a thematic thread that runs from Kojève’s controversial yet unique theorisation of the modern secu-lar State as an “End-State” into the recent political messianism of Giorgio Agam-ben mediated by Carl Schmitt’s political theology. The issue of the relationship between religion and secularism in these discussions concerns the theological re-mainder that persists in the modern Hegelo-Kojève end of history. Kojève and Agamben’s re-consideration of theology and its anthropological or political “truth” is worthy of attention for raising important questions concerning the spir-itual foundation of modern secularism. Despite this importance, I will argue that both sides of this discussion overestimate the significance of a theological-political framework for understanding modern secular life.