Download or read book Leo Strauss and the Recovery of Natural Philosophizing written by Alberto Ghibellini and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the political philosophers of the twentieth century, Leo Strauss is usually singled out for his attempt to revitalize the ancient approach to counter the relativism of both historicism and positivism. It is less commonly underscored, however, that the cornerstone of this attempt is the recovery of the question of "nature," which he regarded as inseparable from genuine philosophy since its inception in ancient Greece. Leo Strauss and the Recovery of "Natural Philosophizing" addresses such a theme, focusing on the theoretical presuppositions that Strauss found at the basis of the acquired inability to raise the question of nature. Prominent among these is the encounter between philosophy and revelation, which, due to their conceptual incompatibility, leads to a condition Strauss metaphorically described as a "second, 'unnatural' cave" characterized by insurmountable "prejudices" rather than "appearance and opinion." These, however, are the starting point of genuine philosophy in the Platonic "first, 'natural' cave," which has to be regained, by way of historical deconstruction of the presuppositions of the second cave, if the "natural philosophizing" embodied by Socratic dialectics is to be reactivated.
Download or read book After Leo Strauss written by Tucker Landy and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proposes a post-Straussian reading of Plato to advance a reconciliation of ancient and modern theories of natural right. Few thinkers of the twentieth century studied the fundamental questions of ethics and politics, or penetrated further into the philosophical sources of the moral relativism of our times, more deeply than Leo Strauss. After Leo Strauss is not yet another attempt to explicate, critique, or defend Strauss. Instead, it encourages us to look in new directions, and to escape certain aspects of Strausss powerful influence, in order to revisit classic texts and make our own judgments about what those texts might mean. Tucker Landy proposes a post-Straussian reading of the Platonic dialogues that is non-esoteric yet respectful of their subtle dramatic-pedagogic form and urges us, in a spirit of Socratic humility, to reexamine ancient and modern theories of natural right to seek possible grounds for reconciliation between them. Landy puts forth a Socratic theory of democratic liberalism as an example of such reconciliation. This book is a breath of fresh air for people like me, who were influenced by Strauss early in their philosophic careers but who refuse to dismiss metaphysics and cosmology, who are wary of the potentially narrowing effects of political philosophy, and who are open, in their philosophical eros, to the possible truth of revelation and the wisdom of the poets. Tucker Landy gives us a new beginninga Socrates made young and beautiful. Peter Kalkavage, author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit
Download or read book Leo Strauss on Democracy Technology and Liberal Education written by Timothy W. Burns and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it, Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education explores Strauss' view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the "conquest of nature." Timothy W. Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss' recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness within democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy—one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy—and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education, Burns also lays out Strauss' frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues.
Download or read book Philosophy History and Tyranny written by Timothy W. Burns and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Tyranny remains a perennial favorite, possessing a timelessness that few philosophical or scholarly debates have ever achieved. On one hand, On Tyranny is the first book-length work in Leo Strauss's extended study of Xenophon, and his "Restatement" retains a vivacity and directness that is sometimes absent in his later works. On the other, "Tyranny and Wisdom" is perhaps the most succinct yet fullest articulation of Alexandre Kojève's overall political thought, and it presents what may be the most uncompromising alternative to Strauss's position as a whole. This volume contains for the first time a comprehensive and critical examination of the debate from scholars well versed in the thought of Strauss, Kojève, Hegel, Heidegger, and the end of history thesis. Of particular interest will be the appendix, which offers for the first time Kojève's unabridged response to Strauss, a response previously available only from the Fonds Kojève at Le Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Accessible to students and scholars alike, this volume works equally well in the classroom and as a resource for more advanced research.
Download or read book Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy written by Michael P. Zuckert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-06-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical study of the influential political theorist dispels popular myths and reveals the inner logic of his varied and notoriously complex writings. Political theorist Leo Strauss was unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight for his alleged influence on neoconservative politics. With The Truth about Leo Strauss, Michael and Catherine Zuckert challenged the many claims and speculations about this complex thinker. Now, with Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy, they offer a more comprehensive interpretation of Strauss’s thought, using the many manifestations of the “problem of political philosophy” as their touchstone. Strauss, they argue, sought to restore political philosophy to its original Socratic form. This is demonstrated through his critique of positivism and historicism, two intellectual currents that undermined his Socratic project. The authors also explore Strauss’s interpretation of both ancient and modern political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. Finally, they examine Strauss’s thought in the context of the twentieth century, when his chief interlocutors were Schmitt, Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy is the most in-depth treatment of this often misunderstood thinker, examining his ideas across his long career. It reveals Strauss’s overall intellectual project: to decode how ancient and modern theory attempted to solve the problem of political philosophy. And it shows why Strauss considered the ancient solution both philosophically and politically superior.
Download or read book Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought written by Jeffrey A. Bernstein and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leo Strauss's readings of historical figures in the philosophical tradition have been justly well explored; however, his relation to contemporary thinkers has not enjoyed the same coverage. In Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought, an international group of scholars examines the possible conversations between Strauss and figures such as Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Charles Taylor, and Hans Blumenberg. The contributors examine topics including religious liberty, the political function of comedy, law, and the relation between the Ancients and the Moderns, and bring Strauss into many new and original discussions that will be of use to those interested in the thought of Strauss, the history of philosophy and political theory, and contemporary continental thought.
Download or read book Leo Strauss written by Neil G. Robertson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leo Strauss’s lifelong intellectual mission was to recover ‘classical rationalism’, a pursuit that has made him a controversial figure to this day. While his critics see him as responsible for a troubling anti-democratic strain in modern politics, others argue that his thought is in fact the best defence of responsible democracy. Neil Robertson’s new introduction to Strauss aims to transcend these divides and present a non-partisan account of his thought. He shows how Strauss’ intellectual formation in Weimar Germany and flight from Nazism led him to develop a critique of modernity that tended to support a conservative politics, while embracing a radical sense of what philosophy is and can be. He examines the way in which Strauss built upon the thought of Nietzsche and Heidegger in order to show how their 'nihilism' led not to a standpoint beyond western rationality, but to a recovery of its roots. This skillful reconstruction of the coherence and unity of Strauss’ thought is the essential guide for anyone wishing to fully grasp the contribution of one of the most contentious and intriguing figures in 20th century intellectual history.
Download or read book Natural Right and History written by Leo Strauss and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago.
Download or read book Leo Strauss and Nietzsche written by Laurence Lampert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Lampert, Strauss's essay is equally important for understanding Strauss himself. Lampert's Strauss is a sympathetic admirer of Nietzsche and his teachings, who ultimately situates him in the company of Plato and elevates understanding the contest between Plato and Nietzsche into the highest task facing contemporary or postmodern philosophy. Why, then, should Strauss have kept this admiration hidden while permitting such a distorted public view of his thought? And why should he have discouraged others from appreciating the teachings that had proved so important to his own philosophical liberation and training? According to Lampert, the answers lie in Strauss's own esoteric writing, full of subtexts, implications, and consequences. Strauss conceived of philosophy as a furtive undertaking, and believed Nietzsche had rejected the necessity of this role for philosophy in favor of a daring candor.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss written by Steven B. Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-11 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leo Strauss was a central figure in the twentieth century renaissance of political philosophy. The essays of The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss provide a comprehensive and non-partisan survey of the major themes and problems that constituted Strauss's work. These include his revival of the great 'quarrel between the ancients and the moderns,' his examination of tension between Jerusalem and Athens, and most controversially his recovery of the tradition of esoteric writing. The volume also examines Strauss's complex relation to a range of contemporary political movements and thinkers, including Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Gershom Scholem, as well as the creation of a distinctive school of 'Straussian' political philosophy.
Download or read book Regarding Nature written by Andrew McLaughlin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1993-03-24 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Enduring Importance of Leo Strauss written by Laurence Lampert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Enduring Importance of Leo Strauss takes on the crucial task of separating what is truly important in the work of Leo Strauss from the ephemeral politics associated with his school. Laurence Lampert focuses on exotericism: the use of artful rhetoric to simultaneously communicate a socially responsible message to the public at large and a more radical message of philosophic truth to a smaller, more intellectually inclined audience. Largely forgotten after the Enlightenment, exotericism, he shows, deeply informed Strauss both as a reader and as a philosophic writer—indeed, Lampert argues, Strauss learned from the finest practitioners of exoteric writing how to become one himself. Examining some of Strauss’s most important books and essays through this exoteric lens, Lampert reevaluates not only Strauss but the philosophers—from Plato to Halevi to Nietzsche—with whom Strauss most deeply engaged. Ultimately Lampert shows that Strauss’s famous distinction between ancient and modern thinkers is primarily rhetorical, one of the great examples of Strauss’s exoteric craft. Celebrating Strauss’s achievements while recognizing one main shortcoming—unlike Nietzsche, he failed to appreciate the ramifications of modern natural science for philosophy and its public presentation—Lampert illuminates Strauss as having even greater philosophic importance than we have thought before.
Download or read book Heidegger Strauss and the Premises of Philosophy written by Richard L. Velkley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-10-03 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking work, Richard L. Velkley examines the complex philosophical relationship between Martin Heidegger and Leo Strauss. Velkley argues that both thinkers provide searching analyses of the philosophical tradition’s origins in radical questioning. For Heidegger and Strauss, the recovery of the original premises of philosophy cannot be separated from rethinking the very possibility of genuine philosophizing. Common views of the influence of Heidegger’s thought on Strauss suggest that, after being inspired early on by Heidegger’s dismantling of the philosophical tradition, Strauss took a wholly separate path, spurning modernity and pursuing instead a renewal of Socratic political philosophy. Velkley rejects this reading and maintains that Strauss’s engagement with the challenges posed by Heidegger—as well as by modern philosophy in general—formed a crucial and enduring framework for his lifelong philosophical project. More than an intellectual biography or a mere charting of influence, Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy is a profound consideration of these two philosophers’ reflections on the roots, meaning, and fate of Western rationalism.
Download or read book Leo Strauss and the Theologico Political Problem written by Heinrich Meier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Leo Strauss on Nietzsche s Thus Spoke Zarathustra written by Leo Strauss and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-12-24 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Leo Strauss published little on Nietzsche, his lectures and correspondence demonstrate a deep critical engagement with Nietzsche’s thought. One of the richest contributions is a seminar on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, taught in 1959 during Strauss’s tenure at the University of Chicago. In the lectures, Strauss draws important parallels between Nietzsche’s most important project and his own ongoing efforts to restore classical political philosophy. With Leo Strauss on Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” eminent Strauss scholar Richard L. Velkley presents Strauss’s lectures on Zarathustra with superb annotations that bring context and clarity to the critical role played by Nietzsche in shaping Strauss’s thought. In addition to the broad relationship between Nietzsche and political philosophy, Strauss adeptly guides readers through Heidegger’s confrontations with Nietzsche, laying out Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche’s “will to power” while also showing how Heidegger can be read as a foil for his own reading of Nietzsche. The lectures also shed light on the relationship between Heidegger and Strauss, as both philosophers saw Nietzsche as a central figure for understanding the crisis of philosophy and Western civilization. Strauss’s reading of Nietzsche is one of the important—yet little appreciated—philosophical inquiries of the past century, both an original interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought and a deep engagement with the core problems that modernity posed for political philosophy. It will be welcomed by anyone interested in the work of either philosopher.
Download or read book The Crisis of Liberal Democracy written by Kenneth L. Deutsch and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1987-01-15 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy is the first book devoted exclusively to Leo Strauss, one of the most influential and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. This work includes essays which illustrate and evaluate Strauss' teaching on natural right and the tradition of political philosophy and demonstrate how Strauss' perspectives have influenced European and American liberal theory. In keeping with Strauss' commitment to philosophical inquiry, essays critical of his work are included as well.
Download or read book The Legacy of Leo Strauss written by Tony Burns and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leo Strauss was a political philosopher who died in 1973 but came to came to prominent attention in the United States and also Britain around the beginning of the War in Iraq. Charges began emerging that architects of the war such as Paul Wolfowitz and large numbers of staff in the US State and Defense Departments had studied with, or been influenced by, the academic work of Strauss and his followers. A vague, but powerful, idea was generated in the popular press that a group known as the Straussians had been instrumental in the long-range strategic planning of American foreign policy, both to advance American interests and to encourage democratic revolutions outside the West. This volume of essays opens up the topic of Leo Strauss and the Straussians to those outside the relatively narrow circles who have been concerned with him and his followers up to now.
