![]() ![]() Instead of corresponding to the pulls and pushes of nature, humans can employ desire to transcend the mere “freedom of the turnspit” and achieve self consciousness. The ability to desire non-being is characteristically human and enables an individual to free himself from the concept of being that so enslaves human life. The key to this transcendence could be human desire if it focuses on that which liberates oneself from that mode of being. This leads to the possibility of self consciousness which needs “transcendence of self with respect to self as given” (ibid 39). Humans possess desires that result in the negation of their conception as natural beings. ![]() The difference that lies between human desire and animal desire is that human desire goes so far as to surpass itself. The essence of human being lies in this power of negation he argues that man is negating action, which transforms given being and by transforming it, transforms itself (Kojeve, 1980: 38). Kojeve, for instance, points to the desire of hunger as a clear example of a desire that a being has that negates the very existence of an object through radical change. Desire seeks to transform the world, to negate the external object in its own existence and put it to the use of the desiring being. It is from this foundation that humans, together with animals, have desire referred to as the drive to alter external shapes or forms of being to that which would suit their own interests and being. Beginning with Hegel’s view of desire, Kojeve holds the assumption that the physical creature is the basic unit of consciousness and the locus of desiring. ![]()
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