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.

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)

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.

scholarly journals Political Science and American Political Thought

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (03) ◽  
pp. 784-788
Author(s):  
Justin Buckley Dyer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
The Public ◽  
Professional Discipline

ABSTRACT Written as a short personal reflection, this article explores the development of political science as an organized professional discipline in the United States. At its inception, political science in the United States was principally concerned with political thought and constitutionalism, and it was taught with the public-spirited purpose of educating for citizenship in a constitutional democracy. Twentieth-century methodological trends at one time threatened to remove political thought and constitutionalism from the curriculum of political science, but recent disciplinary trends suggest that American political thought does have a place in twenty-first-century political science.

Postmodern Approaches to the History of Political Thought

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Foa Dienstag
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S

This article describes the postmodern approach to the history of political thought that has evolved through the practices of a variety of theorists in both Europe and the United States since the 1950s. It maintains that Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy is the originating point of this movement, although neither he nor any of the other theorists it mentions left any canonical statements of methods to compare with the works of Quentin Skinner or Leo Strauss. Terms such as “deconstruction,” “genealogy,” and “radical hermeneutics” are often used to describe these methods. At the broadest level, the postmodern approach displays an acute sensitivity to the role of language in politics, and in political theory itself, that originates in the work of Nietzsche. While postmodernism is nothing if not a congeries of method, this article argues that these diverse approaches have, if not a unity, than at least common sources and overlapping themes.

Having Their Say, Leaving Their Mark

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Adolphus G. Belk ◽  
Robert C. Smith ◽  
Sherri L. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Adverse Conditions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Independent Organization

In general, the founders of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists were “movement people.” Powerful agents of socialization such as the uprisings of the 1960s molded them into scholars with tremendous resolve to tackle systemic inequalities in the political science discipline. In forming NCOBPS as an independent organization, many sought to develop a Black perspective in political science to push the boundaries of knowledge and to use that scholarship to ameliorate the adverse conditions confronting Black people in the United States and around the globe. This paper utilizes historical documents, speeches, interviews, and other scholarly works to detail the lasting contributions of the founders and Black political scientists to the discipline, paying particular attention to their scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and civic engagement. It finds that while political science is much improved as a result of their efforts, there is still work to do if their goals are to be achieved.

An Assessment of Simulations on an : International Organization

1985 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Paul F. Diehl ◽  
Michael J. Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Potential Value ◽  
Existing Structure

Simulation is an increasingly popular pedagogical device; much of the recent literature on the theory and practice of political science instruction attests to this. Probably the most popular simulation device is called model United Nations. In recent articles in Teaching Political Science and NEWS for Teachers of Political Science, William Hazelton and James Jacob have described Model United Nations in glowing terms, focusing on one particular conference and completely ignoring the rest of the 200 or more conferences held annually across the United States.Like Jacob and Hazelton, we recognize the great potential value of United Nations simulations in trying to illuminate the often confusing politics of international organizations. As former participants and directors of these programs, however, we are keenly aware of the shortcomings and difficulties associated with the existing structure of model U.N. programs.

scholarly journals Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in United States Government Courses

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (01) ◽  
pp. 127-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Champney ◽  
Paul Edleman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Student Learning Outcomes ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Science Majors ◽  
Student Knowledge ◽  
States Government ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Males And Females

AbstractThis study employs the Solomon Four-Group Design to measure student knowledge of the United States government and student knowledge of current events at the beginning of a U.S. government course and at the end. In both areas, knowledge improves significantly. Regarding knowledge of the U.S. government, both males and females improve at similar rates, those with higher and lower GPAs improve at similar rates, and political science majors improve at similar rates to non-majors. Regarding current events, males and females improve at similar rates. However, those with higher GPAs and political science majors improve more than others.

Class Politics, American-Style

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Waddell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rich ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue of The American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others.” Fukuyama makes clear that he believes that this state of affairs obtains in the United States today.Readers of Perspectives on Politics will know that the topic has garnered increasing attention from political scientists in general and in our journal in particular. In March 2009, we featured a symposium on Larry Bartels's Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. And in December 2009, our lead article, by Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, starkly posed the question “Oligarchy in the United States?” and answered it with an equally stark “yes.” Winner-Take-All Politics thus engages a broader scholarly discussion within US political science, at the same time that it both draws upon and echoes many “classic themes” of US political science from the work of Charles Beard and E. E. Schattschneider to Ted Lowi and Charles Lindblom.In this symposium, we have brought together a group of important scholars and commentators who offer a range of perspectives on the book and on the broader themes it engages. While most of our discussants are specialists on “American politics,” we have also sought out scholars beyond this subfield. Our charge to the discussants is to evaluate the book's central claims and evidence, with a focus on three related questions: 1) How compelling is its analysis of the “how” and “why” of recent US public policy and its “turn” in favor of “the rich” and against “the middle class”? 2) How compelling is its critique of the subfield of “American politics” for its focus on the voter–politician linkage and on “politics as spectacle” at the expense of an analysis of “politics as organized combat”? 3) And do you agree with its argument that recent changes in US politics necessitate a different, more comparative, and more political economy–centered approach to the study of US politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

In His Day: Awareness of Wilson’s Duplicity

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 762-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Jagmohan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complex Landscape ◽  
American Political Science

Woodrow Wilson is the only American political scientist to have served as President of the United States. In the time between his political science Ph.D. (from Johns Hopkins, in 1886) and his tenure as president (1913–21), he also served as president of Princeton University (1902–10) and president of the American Political Science Association (1909–10). Wilson is one of the most revered figures in American political thought and in American political science. The Woodrow Wilson Award is perhaps APSA’s most distinguished award, given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the previous year, and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation at Princeton University.Wilson has also recently become the subject of controversy, on the campus of Princeton University, and in the political culture more generally, in connection with racist statements that he made and the segregationist practices of his administration. A group of Princeton students associated with the “Black Lives Matter” movement has demanded that Wilson’s name be removed from two campus buildings, one of which is the famous Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (see Martha A. Sandweiss, “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race,” http://www.thenation.com/article/woodrow-wilson-princeton-and-the-complex-landscape-of-race/). Many others have resisted this idea, noting that Wilson is indeed an important figure in the history of twentieth-century liberalism and Progressivism in the United States.A number of colleagues have contacted me suggesting that Perspectives ought to organize a symposium on the Wilson controversy. Although we do not regularly organize symposia around current events, given the valence of the controversy and its connection to issues we have featured in our journal (see especially the September 2015 issue on “The American Politics of Policing and Incarceration”), and given Wilson's importance in the history of our discipline, we have decided to make an exception in this case. We have thus invited a wide range of colleagues whose views on this issue will interest our readers to comment on this controversy. —Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor.

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