Leo Strauss on Modern Political Science:Two Previously Unpublished Manuscripts

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-425
Author(s):  
Svetozar Minkov ◽  
Rasoul Namazi
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prison Reform ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Political Views ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Political Science

The two manuscripts published here for the first time were written by Leo Strauss: the first in 1956 and the second between 1957 and 1962. The first, entitled “Lecture in Milwaukee: Michigan Midwest Political Science,” was written for the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference of Political Scientists on May 4, 1956, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second is an unpublished passage of “An Epilogue” Strauss wrote for Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics, published in 1962. Together these pieces improve our understanding of both the context in which Strauss developed his critique of the new political science and the audience to whom that critique was addressed. These two texts are of “biographical” interest. They are biographical in the sense that they clarify Strauss's thought and its evolution. The “Lecture in Milwaukee” clarifies the context in which Strauss's critique of modern political science was born: confrontation with the political scientists of the 1950s, here represented by Glendon Schubert who is not mentioned in Strauss's published writings. Without this lecture one might overlook the reference to “extrasensory perception” in the ironical discussion of “our man in Missouri” in “Epilogue.” The critique of Arthur Bentley, Bernard Berelson, Harold Laswell, and Herbert Simon by Strauss's students also takes on new meaning if read in the light of this lecture's references and Schubert's published article. Aside from Strauss's view of academia in the 1950s, his references in the lecture to the British Labour Party's policy toward Nazi Germany, to postwar American disarmament, and to prison reform and immigration policy in the United States provide rare and thus important information about Strauss's political views and judgment.

Leo Strauss and American Democracy: A Response to Wood and Holmes

1991 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewis Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Mind ◽  
York Review ◽  
Judaic Studies

Although Leo Strauss spent the better part of his scholarly career in the United States, his name remained essentially unknown in this country during his lifetime outside the rather restricted academic circles of political science and Judaic studies. Only in recent years — owing, positively, to the best-selling status achieved by a book by one of his students, Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind; and negatively, to several critical reviews of his thought and influence in the semi-popular media —has Strauss's name been publicized to a somewhat wider audience. This article is a response to two of the critiques: Gordon Wood's relatively moderate “The Fundamentalists and the Constitution,” published in the New York Review of Books (18 February 1988), and Stephen Taylor Holmes's less restrained “Truths for Philosophers Alone?”, which appeared in the Times Literary Supplement (1–7 December 1989)

“DIONYSIAN ENLIGHTENMENT”: WALTER KAUFMANN'S NIETZSCHE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-269
Author(s):  
JENNIFER RATNER-ROSENHAGEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time ◽  
Intellectual Climate

Walter Kaufmann's monumental study of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (1950) dramatically transformed Nietzsche interpretations in the postwar United States and rendered Kaufmann himself a dominant figure in transatlantic Nietzsche studies from 1950 until his death in 1980. While the longevity of Kaufmann's hegemony over postwar American Nietzsche interpretations in particular is remarkable, even more so is the fact that he revitalized the career of such a radical thinker in the conservative intellectual climate of the 1950s. Philosophers and historians typically credit Kaufmann with rescuing Nietzsche from the Nazis, but argue that he did so by denaturing Nietzsche's philosophy of power and narrowly transforming him into an existentialist. By contrast, this essay argues that Kaufmann took a much more dramatic step by extending the scope of Nietzsche's philosophy, demonstrating how his ideas resonated with but also transcended the dominant philosophies of the day. Kaufmann presented Nietzsche as a philosopher uniquely poised to bridge the increasing mid-century rift between continental and analytic philosophies, as well as between the increasingly distinct moral worlds of academic philosophers and general readers. At a time when philosophical discourses within the university and beyond were pulling apart, Kaufmann put Nietzsche to work to bring them back together. By emphasizing Nietzsche's harmony with the range of scholarly and popular philosophical concerns of mid-century, he also established, for the first time in the United States, Nietzsche's role as a canonical thinker in the Western tradition.

Tocqueville on Religion, the Enlightenment, and the Democratic Soul

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
AARON L. HEROLD
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Religious Psychology ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
New Political Science

This article proposes a new interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, one that focuses on his account of religious psychology. From his observations of America, Tocqueville concludes that human beings have a natural hope for immortality—a hope that is driven by a paradoxical but ineradicable desire to affirm and forget oneself simultaneously. Tocqueville formulates this insight as a critique of the Enlightenment thinkers who laid the foundations for liberal democracy; I argue that he crafts his “new political science” to provide healthy outlets for the religious hopes whose existence these thinkers largely denied and whose anomalous presence in the United States has accordingly led to unforeseen dangers. Tocqueville's analysis not only helps us understand and begin to remedy those dissatisfactions that characterize democracy today but it also reveals his theoretical depth, political moderation, and sober assessment of our moral psychology in a way not seen before.

scholarly journals Nature and Politics

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-366
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Human Beings

The broad theme of “nature and politics” has been ubiquitous at least since Aristotle's Politics, the fourth century BCE text often considered the founding work of political science. Long before “political science” took the distinct disciplinary and institutional forms with which we are familiar, the effort to understand the sources and the range of political experience was typically linked to reflection on nature—the nature of politics, the nature of human beings, the nature of existence, and the nature of “nature” itself. In contemporary, post-World War II political science in the United States, much of this reflection about nature has until recently been linked to the work of Leo Strauss and his followers, who saw themselves as heirs to a philosophical discourse at odds with modern social science. At the same time, serious consideration of nature as a theme of political science never disappeared and in recent decades has dramatically expanded. (And of course interpretations of the science of nature, i.e., “science,” have been at the center of political science, especially since the advent of behavioralism.) One source of this expansion of interest in nature has no doubt been the growing politicization of “the environment” and heightened attention to the natural world as both the setting in which human interaction takes place and the object of extraordinary human transformation and degradation. Another source has been the politicization of identities—race, gender, sexuality—that had long been considered natural and whose contestation raised anew questions about “human nature” and its limits, variations, and transformations. A third source has clearly been the technological and theoretical development of “the natural sciences” themselves, and the growth of new discourses—evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience—that raise new questions about the complex relationships between the non-human dimensions of nature—physics, chemistry, biology and especially neurobiology—and human individuals and the social worlds that human individuals inhabit.

The Politics of American Political Scientists

1971 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everett Carll Ladd ◽  
Seymour Martin Lipset
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Views ◽  
General Recognition ◽  
The University

At the heart of the debates which have resounded around political science these past few years are charges and countercharges as to the “politics” of the contenders. Terms likeconservative, liberalandradical areno longer reserved for analysis of positions in the larger society; they have become part of the regular vocabulary with which political scientists evaluate their colleagues. This increase in visible and self-conscious political dissensus extends, of course, throughout the university, but it has left a special mark on political science and the other social sciences where the issues and objects of political disagreement are so enmeshed with the regular subject matter of the discipline.In spite of all of the discussion, and the now seemingly general recognition that the politics of members of the profession has a lot to do with its development and contributions, we still don't have very much firm information on the distribution of political views among the approximately 6,000 faculty members regularly engaged in the teaching of political science in the United States. There have been a number of studies, of course, of party identification and voting behavior, showing political science to be one of the most Democratic fields in academe.

Leo Strauss: The Ancient as Modern

1988 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Susser
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Intellectual Style ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Political Science

Although his approach to politics and philosophy were relatively little known outside the United States, Leo Strauss was perhaps the most revered and the most controversial figure in post-war American political science. His followers today form what is arguably the most cohesive intellectual fraternity in the discipline. They constitute a highly influential opposition to the empirical–quantitative course taken by political science and political philosophy. This study explores Strauss's ideas highlighting the unconventional mixture of substance and style that gives them an arrestingly idiosyncratic character. Substantively, Strauss belonged to the pre-modern intellectual tradition that understood Truth as accessible and knowable through philosophical contemplation. The form of his argumentation, however, his relentless critique of modernity and the moderns, is conducted with all the cognitive weaponry provided for by the modernist intellectual style.

Political Thought in Xenophon: Straussian Readings of the Anabasis

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leo Strauss

The main aim of this paper is to discuss some influential approaches to political thought in Xenophon’s Anabasis within the field of Political Science, especially within the United States, where the influence of Leo Strauss’ writings on Xenophon has been powerful. It starts by discussing a number of features shared by these discussions, notably a strong idealisation of Xenophon’s wisdom and accuracy; a lack of interest in the conditions under which Xenophon wrote; a pro-Hellenic perspective; and a tendency to innovative (and often allegorical) literary explication. It then discusses the two most important themes treated by Strauss and his followers, Xenophon’s piety and philosophy and politics. It argues that Straussian exegesis introduces anachronistic conceptions while neglecting the narrative dynamics of the text. The final section sets out briefly some ways of exploring Xenophon’s relationship to other currents in Greek political thought.

scholarly journals THE LIFE OF MARTIN ROBINSON DELANY'S AND EVOLUTION HIS IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS

2021 ◽  
Vol 01 (05) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
A.A. Shumakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Nationalism ◽  
Academic Science ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
First Time

This article examines the evolution of the ideological and political views of Martin Robinson Delany, who is credited with the first conceptual justification of the doctrine of "black nationalism" in the United States. The author analyzes the main milestones of the biography of this figure, his rich literary heritage, focusing on the consideration of the internal dialectics of Delany's political philosophy, the variability and inconsistency of his views at various stages of life. Special attention is paid to Delany's attitude to the ideology of pan-Africanism and black nationalism, as well as his controversy with Frederick Douglass. The uniqueness of the study lies in the fact that it is the first attempt in Russian academic science to present the biography and analysis of the ideological and theoretical heritage of an outstanding African-American public figure, an assessment of his contribution to the struggle for the rights of the black population in the United States. The source base is the work of Delany himself and his biographies, none of which has been translated into Russian. A number of sources are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The historical-genetic and historical-typological methods are used as specific historical methods in this work.

The Oxford Handbook of Populism

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The People ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe

Populist forces are increasingly relevant, and studies on populism have entered the mainstream of the political science discipline. However, no book has synthesized the ongoing debate on how to study the phenomenon. The main goal of this Handbook is to provide the state of the art of the scholarship on populism. The Handbook lays out not only the cumulated knowledge on populism, but also the ongoing discussions and research gaps on this topic. The Handbook is divided into four sections. The first presents the main conceptual approaches and points out how the phenomenon in question can be empirically analyzed. The second focuses on populist forces across the world with chapters on Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Central, Eastern, and Western Europe, East Asia, India, Latin America, the post-Soviet States, and the United States. The third reflects on the interaction between populism and various issues both from scholarly and political viewpoints. Analysis includes the relationship between populism and fascism, foreign policy, gender, nationalism, political parties, religion, social movements, and technocracy. The fourth part encompasses recent normative debates on populism, including chapters on populism and cosmopolitanism, constitutionalism, hegemony, the history of popular sovereignty, the idea of the people, and revolution. With each chapter written by an expert in their field, this Handbook will position the study of populism within political science and will be indispensable not only to those who turn to populism for the first time, but also to those who want to take their understanding of populism in new directions.

Portents and Prospects: Graduate Study and the Profession

1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (01) ◽  
pp. 10-12
Author(s):  
William J. Siffin
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Graduate Study ◽  
Academic Employment ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
New Political Science

The supply of Ph.D. level political scientists is astonishingly and ominously out of phase with prospective demand. Drastic changes in our graduate enterprises are inevitable. Some will be deliberate. Others will be forced upon us by uncontrollable events.What Do the Numbers Show?Concerning Supply. About 5000 new political science doctorates were granted between 1969–70 and 1975–76. In the same period 11,927 students embarked upon Ph.D. programs; 1443 were admitted in 1974–75, and another 1174 in 1975–76. 6150 graduate students were active in American Ph.D. programs in 1975–76.Back in the 1950s and 60s, 46% of those who entered our Ph.D. programs completed their work within five to eight years. Between 75% and 85% of them sought or desired academic employment.If the same ratios applied to the Ph.D. starters for 1969–70 through 1975–76, then as many as 5500 more Ph.D.s could appear on the scene between 1974 and 1984, more than 4000 of them seeking academic employment. A relatively high percentage would be women.

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