An examination of Leo Strauss's 1948 notebook and other writings on the Euthyphro, Plato's dialogue on piety, using close analysis and line-by-line commentary.

A transcript of Leo Strauss’s key seminars on Plato’s Protagoras. This book offers a transcript of Strauss’s seminar on Plato’s Protagoras taught at the University of Chicago in the spring quarter of 1965, edited and introduced by renowned scholar Robert C. Bartlett. These lectures have several important features. Unlike his published writings, they are less dense and more conversational. Additionally, while Strauss regarded himself as a Platonist and published some work on Plato, he published little on individual (...) dialogues. In these lectures Strauss treats many of the great Platonic and Straussian themes: the difference between the Socratic political science or art and the Sophistic political science or art of Protagoras; the character and teachability of virtue, its relation to knowledge, and the relations among the virtues, courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom; the good and the pleasant; frankness and concealment; the role of myth; and the relation between freedom of thought and freedom of speech. In these lectures, Strauss examines Protagoras and the sophists, providing a detailed discussion of Protagoras as it relates to Plato’s other dialogues and the work of modern thinkers. This book should be of special interest to students both of Plato and of Strauss. (shrink)

Leo Strauss's introductions to ten writings of Moses Mendelssohn -- Preliminary remark by Alexander Altmann -- Introduction to Pope a metaphysician! -- Introduction to "Epistle to Mr. Lessing in Leipzig" -- Introduction to Commentary on Moses Maimonides' "Logical terms" -- Introduction to Treatise on evidence in metaphysical sciences -- Introduction to Phädon -- Introduction to Treatise on the incorporeality of the human soul -- Introduction to "On a handwritten essay of Mr. de Luc's" -- Introduction to The soul -- (...) Introduction to Morning hours and to the friends of Lessing -- Introduction to God's cause, or providence vindicated. (shrink)

The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, "Leo Strauss On Plato's "Symposium"" offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did.

Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy through careful analyses of works by ancient thinkers. As with his published writings, Strauss’s seminars devoted to specific philosophers were notoriously dense, accessible only to graduate students and scholars with a good command of the subject. In 1965, however, Strauss offered an introductory course on political philosophy at the University of Chicago. Using a conversational style, he sought to make political philosophy, as well as his own ideas (...) and methods, understandable to those with little background on the subject. Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy brings together the lectures that comprise Strauss’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy.” Strauss begins by emphasizing the importance of political philosophy in determining the common good of society and critically examining the two most powerful contemporary challenges to the possibility of using political theory to learn about and develop the best political order: positivism and historicism. In seeking the common good, classical political philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did not distinguish between political philosophy and political science. Today, however, political philosophy must contend with the contemporary belief that it is impossible to know what the good society really is. Strauss emphasizes the need to study the history of political philosophy to see whether the changes in the understanding of nature and conceptions of justice that gradually led people to believe that it is not possible to determine what the best political society is are either necessary or valid. In doing so, he ranges across the entire history of political philosophy, providing a valuable, thematically coherent foundation, including explications of many canonical thinkers, such as Auguste Comte and Immanuel Kant, about whom Strauss did not write extensively in his published writings. (shrink)

In the winter of 1965, Leo Strauss taught a seminar on Hegel at the University of Chicago. While Strauss neither considered himself a Hegelian nor wrote about Hegel at any length, his writings contain intriguing references to the philosopher, particularly in connection with his studies of Hobbes, in his debate in On Tyranny with Alexandre Kojève; and in his account of the “three waves” of modern political philosophy. Leo Strauss on Hegel reconstructs Strauss’s seminar on Hegel, (...) supplemented by passages from an earlier version of the seminar from which only fragments of a transcript remain. Strauss focused his seminar on the lectures collected in The Philosophy of History, which he considered more accessible than Hegel’s written works. In his own lectures on Hegel, Strauss continues his project of demonstrating how modern philosophers related to ancient thought and explores the development and weaknesses of modern political theory. Strauss is especially concerned with the relationship in Hegel between empirical history and his philosophy of history, and he argues for the primacy of religion in Hegel’s understanding of history and society. In addition to a relatively complete transcript, Leo Strauss on Hegel also includes annotations, which bring context and clarity to the text. (shrink)

Natural Right and History is widely recognized as Strauss’s most influential work. The six lectures, written while Strauss was at the New School, and a full transcript of the 1949 Walgreen Lectures show Strauss working toward the ideas he would present in fully matured form in his landmark work. In them, he explores natural right and the relationship between modern philosophers and the thought of the ancient Greek philosophers, as well as the relation of political philosophy to (...) contemporary political science and to major political and historical events, especially the Holocaust and World War II. Previously unpublished in book form, Strauss’s lectures are presented here in a thematic order that mirrors Natural Right and History and with interpretive essays by J. A. Colen, Christopher Lynch, Svetozar Minkov, Daniel Tanguay, Nathan Tarcov, and Michael Zuckert that establish their relation to the work. Rounding out the book are copious annotations and notes to facilitate further study. (shrink)

The essays collected in Persecution and the Art of Writing all deal with one problem--the relation between philosophy and politics. Here, Strauss sets forth the thesis that many philosophers, especially political philosophers, have reacted to the threat of persecution by disguising their most controversial and heterodox ideas.

Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy . "We are in sympathy," he writes, "with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it (...) is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech." This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors. (shrink)

On Tyranny is Leo Strauss’s classic reading of Xenophon’s dialogue Hiero, or Tyrannicus, in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. Included are a translation of the dialogue from its original Greek, a critique of Strauss’s commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, and the complete correspondence between the two. This revised and expanded edition introduces important corrections throughout and expands Strauss’s restatement of his position in light of (...) Kojève’s commentary to bring it into conformity with the text as it was originally published in France. (shrink)

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, _Natural Right and History_ remains as controversial and essential as ever. "Strauss... makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find (...) ourselves... [and] brings to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind."—John H. Hallowell, _American Political Science Review_ Leo Strauss was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

On Tyranny is Leo Strauss's classic reading of Xenophon's dialogue, Hiero or Tyrannicus, in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. This edition includes a translation of the dialogue, a critique of the commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, Strauss's restatement of his position in light of Kojève's comments, and finally, the complete Strauss-Kojève correspondence. "Through [Strauss's] interpretation Xenophon appears to us as no longer the somewhat (...) dull and flat author we know, but as a brilliant and subtle writer, an original and profound thinker. What is more, in interpreting this forgotten dialogue, Strauss lays bare great moral and political problems that are still ours." —Alexandre Kojève, Critique "On Tyranny is a complex and stimulating book with its 'parallel dialogue' made all the more striking since both participants take such unusual, highly provocative positions, and so force readers to face substantial problems in what are often wholly unfamiliar, even shocking ways." —Robert Pippin, History and Theory "Every political scientist who tries to disentangle himself from the contemporary confusion over the problems of tyranny will be much indebted to this study and inevitably use it as a starting point."—Eric Voegelin, The Review of Politics Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

This volume provides an unequaled introduction to the thought of chief contributors to the Western tradition of political philosophy from classical Greek antiquity to the twentieth century. Written by specialists on the various philosophers, this third edition has been expanded significantly to include both new and revised essays.

Leo Strauss's Philosophy and Law contains a groundbreaking study of the political philosophy of Maimonides and his Islamic predecessors, and it offers an argument on behalf of that philosophy which is also a profound critique of modern philosophy. Here is an entirely new and complete English translation of Strauss's work, which takes as its ideal the exacting standards of accuracy that Strauss himself emphasized in his own work. It includes a prefatory essay introducing the argument of each (...) of the four sections of Philosophy and Law. This is a fresh and challenging treatment of the perennial conflict between reason and revelation, or philosophy and religion. Strauss's key contention in this book is that the most influential modern approaches to this conflict have run aground in ways that reflect their loss of key insights developed by the medieval philosophers of Islam and their Jewish pupils, especially Maimonides. Strauss challenges the modern view that scientific enlightenment must ultimately amount to atheism, and that therefore there can be no such thing as enlightened religion. Through a careful, original, and detailed treatment of central works of the medieval Islamic-Jewish tradition, especially Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, Strauss aims to recover their key insights into this question. (shrink)

Professor Eric A. Havelock in his book The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics approaches classical political philosophy from the positivistic point of view. The doctrine to which he adheres is however a somewhat obsolete version of positivism. Positivist study of society, as he understands it, is "descriptive" and opposed to "judgmental evaluation" but this does not prevent his siding with those who understand "History as Progress." The social scientist cannot speak of progress unless value judgments can be objective. The up-to-date (...) or consistent positivist will therefore refrain from speaking of progress and instead speak of change. Similarly Havelock appears to accept the distinction between primitive men or savages and civilized men, whereas the consistent positivist will speak not of savages but of pre-literate men and assert that preliterate men have "civilizations" or "cultures" neither superior nor inferior to those of literate men. It would be wrong to believe that the up-to-date positivist is entirely consistent or that his careful avoidance of "evaluative" terms is entirely due to his methodological puritanism; his heart tells him that once one admits the inequality of "cultures," one may not be able to condemn colonialism on moral grounds. Havelock is therefore perhaps only more intelligent or more frank than the consistent positivists when he describes his position as liberal rather than as positivist. Yet this does not entirely dispose of the difficulty. "For the liberals man is to be taken as you find him and therefore his present political institutions are to be taken as given also." This means that here and now the liberals will take American democracy as given and will then "concentrate empirically and descriptively on this kind of political mechanism." This is a fair description of positivistic political science at its best. Yet Havelock praises the same liberals for writing "in defence of democracy". What then is a liberal? Was a German social scientist who in 1939 took "the present political institutions as given" and subjected them to "empirical analysis" for this reason by itself a liberal? If so then a liberal is not a man of strong moral or political convictions, and this does not seem to agree with the common meaning of the word. Yet from Havelock's Preface it appears that the liberal regards all political and moral convictions as "negotiable" because he is extremely tolerant. Havelock applies the implicit maxim of conduct to the relations between the United States and Soviet Russia today. For all one can know from his book, he would have given the same advice during the conflict between the Western democracies and the Fascist regimes at the time of the Munich conference. At any rate he does not seem to have given thought to the question of whether Tolerance can remain tolerant when confronted with unqualified Intolerance or whether one must not fall back in the end on "moral convictions" which are not "negotiable." In almost all these points Havelock is liberal in the sense in which the word is commonly used here and now. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is well known for his thesis that there is an irreconcilable conflict between philosophy and “revelation,” i.e. monotheistic revealed religion, which cannot be harmonized. The philosopher qua philosopher cannot be a believer, while the believer qua believer cannot be a philosopher. However, it is less widely recognized that Strauss’ thought about religion as the fundamental alternative to philosophy follows two divergent trajectories. The first emphasizes the unique importance of revealed religion, while the other emphasizes the conflict (...) between philosophy and what he calls “religion in general.” Sometimes, Strauss suggests that revelation poses a unique “challenge” to philosophy, such that the philosopher must refute the mere possibility of revelation in order to justify the legitimacy of philosophy itself. Sometimes, however, he suggests rather that revelation is a religion like any other, not essentially different from e.g. ancient polytheism, which would seem therefore to pose no unique “challenge.” I argue that Strauss ultimately fails to reconcile these two strands of this thought and that this failure is related both to tensions internal to his positive conception of philosophy itself as a middle path between dogmatism and skepticism and to the fact that he begs the question by assuming, rather than proving, that it follows necessarily from “the very idea of revelation” that it cannot be harmonized with philosophy. (shrink)

Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas, two twentieth-century Jewish philosophers and two extremely provocative thinkers whose reputations have grown considerably over the last twenty years, are rarely studied together. This is due to the disparate interests of many of their intellectual heirs. Strauss has influenced political theorists and policy makers on the right while Levinas has been championed in the humanities by different cadres associated with postmodernist thought. In Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of (...) Revelation, Leora Batnitzky brings together these two seemingly incongruous contemporaries, demonstrating that they often had the same philosophical sources and their projects had many formal parallels. While such a comparison is valuable in itself for better understanding each figure, it also raises profound questions in the current debate on the definitions of 'religion', suggesting new ways that religion makes claims on both philosophy and politics. (shrink)

In his review on Leo Strauss’ «On tyranny» Eric Voegelin, pointing out importance of his opponent’s work, still disagrees with several crucial Strauss’s findings. Especially important for him is comparing of «ancient» and «modern» tyranny, as well as Strauss’ idea that the text of «Hiero» makes up bounds between ancient and modern political philosophy, «tyrannical teaching» of Xenophon, the author of «Hiero», is very close to the Machiavelli’s point of view as presented in «The Prince». Voegelin points (...) out that this thought is indeed not that true and Machiavelli’s teaching does deal with the same sort of problem as Xenophon’s writing, because these texts were created in different historical contexts. The main aim is to understand modern tyranny, but, Voegelin argues, it won’t happen if we, as Strauss does, think that ancient and modern tyranny are the same. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy. Strauss recovered that great tradition of thought largely lost to the West by beginning his study of classical thought with its teaching on politics rather than its metaphysics. What brought Strauss to this way of reading the classics, however, was a discovery he made as a young political scientist studying the obscure texts of Islamic and Jewish medieval political thought. In this volume, Joshua Parens examines Strauss's (...) investigations of medieval political philosophy, offering interpretations of his writings on the great thinkers of that tradition, including interpretations of his most difficult writings on Alfarabi and Maimonides. In addition Parens explicates Strauss's statements on Christian medieval thought and his argument for rejecting the Scholastic paradigm as a method for interpreting Islamic and Jewish thought. Contrasting Scholasticism with Islamic and Jewish medieval political philosophy, Parens clarifies the theme of Strauss's thought, what Strauss calls the "theologico-political problem," and reveals the significance of medieval political philosophy in the Western tradition. (shrink)

This provocative book examines the teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers.

In this book, Rasoul Namazi offers the first in-depth study of Leo Strauss' writings on Islamic political thought, a topic that interested Strauss over the course of his career. Namazi's volume focuses on several important studies by Strauss on Islamic thought. He critically analyzes Strauss's notes on Averroes' commentary on Plato's Republic and also proposes an interpretation of Strauss' theologico-political notes on the Arabian Nights. Namazi also interprets Strauss' essay on Alfarabi's enigmatic treatise, The (...) Philosophy of Plato and provides a detailed commentary on his complex essay devoted to Alfarabi's summary of Plato's Laws. Based on previously unpublished material from Strauss' papers, Namazi's volume provides new insights into Strauss' reflections on religion, philosophy, and politics, and their relationship to wisdom, persecution, divine law, and unbelief in the works of key Muslim thinkers. His work presents Strauss as one of the most innovative historians and scholars of Islamic thought of all time. (shrink)

European scholars discuss Leo Strauss as a major figure in the history of philosophy. This volume presents, for the first time in English, the approaches to Leo Strauss being pursued by European scholars in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Whereas the traditions of Strauss interpretation have, until recently, focused on issues of interest to political science and, to a lesser extent, religious studies, this collection makes a powerful contribution to the recent philosophical consideration of Strauss. Each essay (...) treats a unique thread emerging from the tapestry of Straussian thought, illustrating Strauss’s thinking on the reading of ancient texts and on the relationship between philosophy and politics. In doing so, Strauss is placed squarely and uncompromisingly within the history of philosophy, in conversation with a large range of philosophical figures. “This is a really wonderful volume, a compelling narrative of Strauss as a reader of philosophical texts who both originated a new way of philosophical exploration as well as freely responded to philosophical and historical circumstances of his time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, College of Holy Cross. (shrink)

Leo Strauss’s early book Philosophy and Law has remained a stumbling block in current Strauss scholarship. This article seeks to explore the text by way of the ensuing debate between Strauss and Julius Guttmann concerning the historical and systematic presuppositions of Jewish philosophy. In decisive respects Guttmann was unable to follow Strauss’s argument, particularly because he could not solve the riddle whether Philosophy and Law was a precursor of the “exoteric” Strauss or not. Furthermore, he (...) miscast the perspective of political philosophy as an all-out politicization of philosophy. Examining these fallacies of interpretation, the article argues for a better understanding of the philosophical and rhetorical strategies employed in Strauss’s Philosophy and Law. (shrink)

The influential political philosopher Leo Strauss has been credited by conservatives with the recovery of the great tradition of political philosophy stretching back to Plato. Among Strauss's most enduring legacies is a strongly negative assessment of Nietzsche as the modern philosopher most at odds with that tradition and most responsible for the sins of twentieth-century culture--relativism, godlessness, nihilism, and the breakdown of family values. In fact, this apparent denunciation has become so closely associated with Strauss that it (...) is often seen as the very core of his thought. In Leo Strauss and Nietzsche, the eminent Nietzsche scholar Laurence Lampert offers a controversial new assessment of the Strauss-Nietzsche connection. Lampert undertakes a searching examination of the key Straussian essay, "Note on the Plan of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil." He shows that this essay, written toward the end of Strauss's life and placed at the center of his final work, reveals an affinity for and debt to Nietzsche greater than Strauss's followers allow. Lampert argues that the essay comprises the most important interpretation of Nietzsche ever published, one that clarifies Nietzsche's conception of nature and of human spiritual history and demonstrates the logical relationship between the essential themes in Nietzsche's thought--the will to power and the eternal return. (shrink)

In this original new study, Grant Havers critically interprets Leo Strauss’s political philosophy from a conservative perspective. Most mainstream readers of Strauss have either condemned him from the Left as an extreme right-wing opponent of liberal democracy or celebrated him from the Right as a traditional defender of Western civilization. Rejecting both of these portrayals, Havers shifts the debate beyond the conventional parameters of our age. He persuasively shows that Strauss was neither a man of the Far (...) Right nor a conservative. He was in fact a secular Cold War liberal who taught his followers to uphold Anglo-American democracy as the one true universal regime that does not need a specifically Christian foundation. Strauss firmly rejects the traditional conservative view held by Edmund Burke that Anglo-American democracy needs the leavening influence of Christian morality. Havers maintains that Strauss’s refusal to recognize the role of Christianity in shaping Western civilization, though historically unjustified, is crucial to Strauss and the Straussian portrayal of Anglo-American democracy. In the Straussian view, the Anglo-American ideals of liberty, equality, and constitutional government owe more to the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle than to the Christian tradition. In the process, Havers argues, Straussians end up rewriting history by falsely idealizing the ancient Greeks as the forerunners of modern liberal democracy, despite the Greek toleration of practices such as slavery and infanticide. Straussians also misrepresent statesmen of the Anglo-American political tradition such as Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill as heirs to the ancient Greek tradition of statecraft, despite their indebtedness to Christianity. Havers contends that the most troubling implication of Straussianism is that it provides an ideological rationale for the aggressive spread of democratic values on a global basis while ignoring the preconditions that make these values possible. Concepts such as the rule of law, constitutional government, Christian morality, and the separation of church and state are not easily transplanted beyond the historic confines of Anglo-American civilization, as recent wars to spread democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia have demonstrated. This excellent study will be of interest not only to longtime readers of Strauss but also philosophers, political scientists, historians, religious studies scholars, and theologians. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is perhaps the only important theorist of our time who sought to revive political philosophy as it was practiced by thinkers like Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Montesquieu. His penetrating studies of the masters of both classical political philosophy and modern political thought have suggested that philosophical and political issues long thought dead and buried may be not only alive, but at the root of contemporary uncertainties and perplexities.

This collection of original essays by prominent scholars of political philosophy analyzes Leo Strauss's thoughts concerning the relationship between revelation and reason within the context of Jewish religion and thought. Unlike other edited collections about Strauss, the contributors to Leo Strauss and Judaism: Jerusalem and Athens Critically Revisited examine their subject using a wide range of ideological and methodological approaches, arriving at a variety of conclusions, many of which are controversial. This book will be of interest to (...) students and scholars of Leo Strauss, Jewish philosophy, and political theory. (shrink)

Collingwood was prevented by his death from elaborating his philosophy of history in the full sense of the term. He believed that he could do no more than to attempt "a philosophic inquiry into the nature of history regarded as a special type or form of knowledge with a special type of object". Since philosophy of history in the narrower sense admittedly points to philosophy of history in the comprehensive sense, it might seem that Collingwood unjustifiably postponed the discussion of (...) the fundamental issue. But it is perhaps fairer to say that philosophy of history in the comprehensive sense presupposes philosophy of history in the narrower sense, or that the fusion of philosophy and history presupposes the soundness or adequacy of "scientific history": if the historical understanding of the last four or five generations is not decisively superior to the historical understanding that was possible in the past, the conversion of philosophy into history loses its most convincing, or at least its most persuasive, justification. (shrink)

Leo Strauss's approach to politics may indeed be regarded as realist. Some traits of his thought, however, seem to align him to an opposite, idealist tendency. Among these are Strauss's criticism of the moderns for their rejection of the political philosophy of the classics on the grounds of its being utopian and his attention toward the concept of natural right. This article shows how these traits, which at first glance oppose the classification of Strauss as a political (...) realist, can be traced back to a framework that is able to lessen, and even overturn, the apparently idealistic character of his thought. In doing so, it delves into Strauss's understanding of ancient utopianism - notably, of the best city described in Plato's Republic - and his criticism of the modern interpretation thereof. Explaining why Strauss regarded such an interpretation as based on a fundamental misunderstanding, the article emphasizes the role played by the Biblical tradition in turning philosophy from a theoretical way of life into a practical pursuit in the service of the political sphere. This also sheds light on Strauss's twofold definition of political philosophy as both the philosophical treatment of politics and the 'political' (i.e. rhetorical) introduction to philosophy. (shrink)

This book, by one of the most prominent interpreters of Leo Strauss's thought, was the first to address the problem that Leo Strauss himself said was the theme of his studies: the theologico-political problem or the confrontation with the theological and the political alternative to philosophy as a way of life. In his theologico-political treatise, which comprises four parts and an appendix, Heinrich Meier clarifies the distinction between political theology and political philosophy and reappraises the unifying center of (...) Strauss's philosophical enterprise. The book is the culmination of Meier's work on the theologico-political problem. It will interest anyone who seeks to understand both the problem caused by revelation for philosophy and the challenge posed by political-religious radicalism. The appendix makes available for the first time two lectures by Strauss that are immediately relevant to the subject of this book and that will open the way for future research and debate on the legacy of Strauss. (shrink)

In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism’s basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state—a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab’s introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt’s intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to the Hitlerian one-party state. In addition to analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword by Tracy (...) B. Strong placing Schmitt’s work into contemporary context, this expanded edition also includes a translation of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations,” which the author himself added to the 1932 edition of the book. An essential update on a modern classic, The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy. (shrink)

This is the first book-length examination of the impact Leo Strauss’ immigration to the United States had on this thinking. Adi Armon weaves together a close reading of unpublished seminars Strauss taught at the University of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s with an interpretation of his later works, all of which were of course written against the backdrop of the Cold War. First, the book describes the intellectual environment that shaped the young Strauss’ worldview in the (...) Weimar Republic, tracing those aspects of his thought that changed and others that remained consistent up until his immigration to America. Armon then goes on to explore the centrality of Karl Marx to Strauss’s intellectual biography. By analyzing an unpublished seminar Strauss taught with Joseph Cropsey at the University of Chicago in 1960, Armon shows how Strauss’ fragmentary, partial engagement with Marx in writing obscured the important role that Marxism actually played as an intellectual challenge to his later political thinking. Finally, the book explores the manifestations of Straussian doctrine in postwar America through reading Strauss’ The City and Man as a representative of his political teaching. (shrink)

Can politics be studied scientifically, and if so, how? Assuming it is impossible to justify values by human reason alone, social science has come to consider an unreflective relativism the only viable basis, not only for its own operations, but for liberal societies more generally. Although the experience of the sixties has made social scientists more sensitive to the importance of values, it has not led to a fundamental reexamination of value relativism, which remains the basis of contemporary social science. (...) Almost three decades after Leo Strauss's death, Nasser Behnegar offers the first sustained exposition of what Strauss was best known for: his radical critique of contemporary social science, and particularly of political science. Behnegar's impressive book argues that Strauss was not against the scientific study of politics, but he did reject the idea that it could be built upon political science's unexamined assumption of the distinction between facts and values. Max Weber was, for Strauss, the most profound exponent of values relativism in social science, and Behnegar's explication artfully illuminates Strauss's critique of Weber's belief in the ultimate insolubility of all value conflicts. Strauss's polemic against contemporary political science was meant to make clear the contradiction between its claim of value-free premises and its commitment to democratic principles. As Behnegar ultimately shows, values--the ethical component lacking in a contemporary social science--are essential to Strauss's project of constructing a genuinely scientific study of politics. (shrink)

This book analyzes the reception of Leo Strauss and his political philosophy in Northeast Asia. By juxtaposing the central idea of Strauss's political philosophy with the question of modernity, the contributors explore the eclectic adaptations of Strauss in Northeast Asian countries as a philosophical appropriation across cultures. Examining how Strauss's philosophy was first introduced in Northeast Asia, the book sheds light on the similarities and differences in experiences, challenging the dominant approach which attributes various receptions of (...) Strauss in Northeast Asia solely to sociopolitical circumstances. This book also seeks to move beyond a China-centric approach to investigate the possible transcultural appeals of Strauss's political philosophy by exploring the cases of Japan and South Korea. Appealing to a wide network of scholars and practitioners in East Asia engaged in rethinking cultural particularities, this volume will be attractive to upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, and advanced researchers in political philosophy, political theory, and Asian politics. (shrink)

This book analyses the reception of Leo Strauss and his political philosophy in Northeast Asia. By juxtaposing the central idea of Strauss' political philosophy with the question of modernity, the contributors explore the eclectic adaptations of Strauss in Northeast Asian countries as a philosophical appropriation across cultures. Examining how Strauss' philosophy was first introduced in Northeast Asia, the book sheds light on the similarities and differences in experiences, challenging the dominant approach which attributes various receptions of (...) Strauss in Northeast Asia solely to socio-political circumstances. This book also seeks to move beyond a China-centric approach to investigate the possible transcultural appeals of Strauss' political philosophy by exploring the cases of Japan and South Korea. Appealing to a wide network of scholars and practitioners in East Asia engaged in rethinking cultural particularities, this volume will be attractive to upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, and advanced researchers in political philosophy, political theory, and Asian politics. (shrink)

Leo Strauss’ reading of al-Farabi is a meditation on the issue of how philosophers speak beyond their time and place. They must speak in such a way that they can be understood by the enlightened but avoid persecution by the vulgar masses. According to Strauss, al-Farabi recognized that the philosopher can be happy in the imperfect city democratic city because of its freedom of thought, while the masses can be truly happy only in the virtuous city. This leads (...) him to consider the possible role for the philosopher to advise the "enlightened prince" and to participate in the manipulation of the beliefs of the masses toward some enlightened goal – what we are now witnessing in our think-tank politics. But if we consider a truer reading of al-Farabi’s philosophy, it in many ways recognizes the importance of imperfections, ambivalences, and frontiers. Our intellectual and religious ideals are often beyond our reach – Plato’s “city in speech” – but yet these ideals can orient us and give us a sense of place even in our imperfect situations. For al-Farabi, the democratic city is the best of the imperfect cities, because its imperfections and freedoms allow for new possibilities. Today most of us live in this imperfect city, but this is precisely what allows us to maintain our connections with the past, and project many possibilities for the future. And it is what allows this conference to take place. (shrink)

Leo Strauss’ controversial theory of esoteric philosophy, as presented in Persecution and the Art of Writing, sparked a fierce debate. Opponents and proponents of the theory utilised a wide range of perspectives to support their arguments. By investigating esoteric philosophy from a sociolinguistic perspective, this paper introduces a novel perspective to the Strauss dispute. In PAW Strauss is mistaken regarding esotericism and its role in philosophy. On one hand it is reasonable to endorse Strauss’ persuasive account (...) on the origins of esoteric writing. The Straussian account provides a plausible sociological background as to why philosophy, per se became an esoteric fliedH. On the other hand it seems as Strauss ascribed undue significance to possible clandestine massages that may be found within works of philosophy because philosophy is mostly already done in an esoteric linguistic space. (shrink)

Leo Strauss reconnaît, en 1970, qu'il doit tout ce qu'il a découvert d'important en matière de discours exotérique à Lessing. La présente étude cherche à montrer d'abord le bien-fondé de cette affirmation en explorant ce que le jeune Strauss a pu puiser chez Lessing dans les travaux qui l'occupèrent de 1921 à 1937. Cet examen nous conduit aussi à ce qu'ont pu dire de Lessing Rosenzweig et Cohen (et qui va dans le sens de ce que Strauss (...) en comprenait) qu'aux textes de Lessing luimême où, effectivement, Strauss a considérablement puisé, et qui sont bien l'une des sources principales de ses problématiques et de ses orientations. Leo Strauss, in 1970, admits that everything of importance that he discovered in the field of esoteric discourse he owes to Lessing. This study (the following study) attempts to show, first off, the validity of this statement by examining what the young Strauss could have drawn from Lessing in the work that occupied him from 1921 to 1937. This includes what Rosenzweig and Cohen may have said of Lessing (more or less what Strauss himself understood of him), as well as Lessing's own texts from which Strauss did draw considerably, which are surely one of the principal sources of his problematics and orientations. (shrink)

Leo Strauss once called the theologico-political problem ‘the theme of my investigations’ from the 1920s on. What justified this remark is by no means obvious. This article examines the origins of Strauss’s concern with political theology in his earliest writings on Zionism and Jewish thought during the Weimar period. Here we see Strauss, at the outset of his career as a young Zionist committed to a programme of political atheism, slowly begin to develop the idea that the (...) conflict between unbelief and belief (Unglauben und Glauben) was the ‘deepest theme of world history’. This awareness, I argue, slowly led Strauss to reassess the adequacy of political Zionism as an answer to the Jewish question and to justify his later claim about the centrality of the theologico-political problem. (shrink)

Walker feels that his contention regarding the novelty of Machiavelli's method is in need of proof. He asserts that "the practice of considering negative instances was far more extensively used by St. Thomas Aquinas than it was by Machiavelli, who is but a tyro in this respect." "But neither St. Thomas nor any other mediaeval thinker... [proves his] theorems by citing similar instances taken from ancient and contemporary history," to say nothing of other differences between their procedure and that of (...) Machiavelli. Walker admits that "there are... similarities in method, some of them quite striking," between Machiavelli and Aristotle. But "there are also marked differences." "Aristotle's Politics contains at least as many, if not more, precepts or maxims than the Discourses of Machiavelli, but rarely does Aristotle cite even a single historical example to show that in practice they would work, whereas Machiavelli invariably cites several..." Furthermore, Machiavelli's method, in contradistinction to Aristotle's, is "essentially historical." It was "to his reading of ancient historians," and apparently not to his study of Aristotle, that "Machiavelli's interest in history and his realization of its significance to the politician was undoubtedly due". It would then seem that the new method emerged by virtue of a synthesis between Aristotle's political philosophy and "history," i.e. coherent records of past events. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leo Strauss on Plato's Euthyphro ed. Hannes Kerber, and Svetozar Y. MinkovColin David PearsKERBER, Hannes, and Svetozar Y. Minkov, editors. Leo Strauss on Plato's Euthyphro. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023. vii + 231 pp. Cloth, $74.95; paper, $22.95Leo Strauss is an enigmatic figure in the landscape of political philosophy, deeply committed to the restoration of political philosophy as the premiere discipline in academia. (...) He spent his career working to reopen le querelle des anciens et des modernes and the theologico-political problem underlying those tensions. Though, as the editors of this volume point out, Strauss's motivations were not merely historiographic and the evolution of his thought was not without significant, if fruitful, setbacks.Strauss's early thought is defined by his engagement with Maimonides, and especially Philosophy and Law (1935). Without fully abandoning the [End Page 550] traditional interpretation of Maimonides as reconciling Jewish and Aristotelian philosophy, Strauss advances Maimonides as an esoteric thinker with a more complex and nuanced philosophic perspective. Strauss later turned to al-Farabi, who like Maimonides grapples with the complex interrelation of reason, revelation, and the role of philosophy. It was during this era that Strauss, having just fled Nazi Germany in 1938, confirmed his view of esoterism in philosophic writing and jettisoned limited traditional interpretations.However, these phases of Strauss's early development prove short-lived. In 1946, Strauss "suffers" his famous "shipwreck," a profound philosophic crisis, which compelled him "to begin again from the beginning" (Strauss to Löwith, 1946). Al-Farabi had led Strauss back into a study of Plato and to the crisis of reason laid out in Plato's dialogues, the crux of which is the possibility that there may exist permanent limits on what philosophy or science can know about the fundamental nature of things. The implications this has regarding the legitimacy of divine revelation led to the "second sailing" suggested in the Phaedo, and to Strauss's complete reevaluation of the theologico-political problem.The present volume provides a view of Strauss's evolving thought immediately following his "shipwreck" and as he begins to critically elaborate on his view of the relationship between philosophy and religion. Included are Strauss's notebook on Plato's Euthyphro and Crito (1948), a draft of his first lecture on the Euthyphro (1950), notes for his second lecture on the Euthyphro and the text of the lecture itself (1952), as well as marginalia and selections from his copy of Plato's dialogue. Together, these materials make up the several layers surrounding the heart of Strauss's thought on the problems of justice and piety, or "whether the right and necessity of philosophy are completely evident."Reading this volume is an exercise in flipping back and forth between one section and another to the point where one is tempted to break the spine, separate the sections, and lay them out side by side. Strauss's notebook provides his line-by-line interpretation of the Platonic dialogues and forms the basis for both the draft of his first lecture, his notes on the second, and his 1952 lecture itself. Astute readers may already notice in the notebook how Strauss subtly opens up his view of piety, for example by taking seriously Euthyphro's first but formally flawed definition of piety and gradually refusing to position Euthyphro as a fool. Strauss's draft of his first lecture picks up the notebook's themes but still presents a view of piety more in line with the pro-philosopher stance presented early in the notes. By contrast, the 1952 lecture presents a more elegant formulation of Strauss's position, both in words and actions. That is, not only does the second lecture closely follow the notebook's nuanced exegesis, but it is also designed to stimulate the reader's thinking on the problems of justice and piety, rather than resolve these didactically.Strauss appears to have abandoned the approach he took in the first lecture in favor of an approach that echoed Plato's own presentation in the Euthyphro. He closes the 1952 lecture with two especially salient [End Page 551] points. Returning to his early claim... (shrink)