Master-slave dialectic

On one reading, a master is master only through a slave's acknowledgment, yet only subjects can recognize, and he has made the slave a thing; hence his permanent dissatisfaction.

Put simply One reading of Hegel's master and slave: a master is a master only if a slave acknowledges him. But only a person can truly acknowledge anyone, and he has made the slave a thing. So he is never satisfied.

On one reading, through real labor, by reshaping the world with his own work, the slave makes himself into a subject; the one reduced to a thing acquires subjectivity.

Put simply One reading of Hegel's master and slave: by working on the world and reshaping it, the slave makes himself a person with a self of his own. The one treated as a thing becomes a subject.

For Davis the master is never secure: he stands perpetually on the brink of turning into the slave, who holds real and concrete power to flip the relation.

Put simply Angela Davis, reading Hegel's master and slave: the master is always on the verge of becoming the slave, because the slave holds real, concrete power to turn the relationship around.

Davis argues that, looked at philosophically, the master's supposed freedom and independence are a myth: slavery itself supplied his livelihood and wealth, so he depended on the slave.

Put simply Angela Davis, reading Hegel's master and slave: the master's freedom and independence are a myth. Slavery itself supplied his livelihood and wealth, so he depended on the slave all along.

Bernstein reads Hegel's master-slave dialectic as showing identity is never self-contained but always mediated by another's recognition; these dependencies are one of the things we find unbearable.

Put simply Bernstein's reading of Hegel's master and slave: no one's identity is self-contained; it always comes through being acknowledged by someone else. Depending on others like this is one of the things we find unbearable.

Kojève's Heidegger-steeped reading of Hegel, centered on master and slave, was, in Shore's view, a main conduit for Hegel into French existentialism, and into The Second Sex especially.

Put simply Shore: Kojève read Hegel through Heidegger, centering on Hegel's story of master and slave. In her view, that reading was a main route by which Hegel reached French existentialism, and The Second Sex above all.

Shore reads Foucault's dispersed power as an attempt to invert and overcome the subject-object paradigm: no subject sits at the source of power, bearing down on an object.

Put simply Shore: Foucault's spread-out power tries to overturn the old picture of a subject acting on an object. No one person sits at the source of power, pressing down on something below.