Leo Strauss and the politics of biblical religion

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-363
Author(s):  
Grant Havers
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Biblical Religion

Leo Strauss was one of the few political philosophers of the twentieth century to study the relation between faith and political philosophy. Yet Strauss's notoriously esoteric style has led scholars to wildly diverse interpretations of his views: his defenders believe that Strauss supports biblical religion as an instrument of truth and morality, while his critics contend that he opposes biblical religion for its biases while appreciating its political usefulness. I shall argue that Strauss is deeply opposed to the doctrines and political usage of biblical religion. For biblical doctrines clash with his theory of natural right, the latter being the basis of political stability, according to Strauss.

Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Balot
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
Rational Order ◽  
Stated Purpose

This chapter evaluates the arguments and intentions of Leo Strauss’s most ambitious political text, Natural Right and History. Strauss’s stated purpose is to rehabilitate the ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of “natural right”—a term of art by which he referred to the justice inherent in the rational order of nature. His express motivation was to rebut the relativism and historicism that, in his view, characterized twentieth-century political thought. This chapter contends that the book’s core lies in its implicit presentation of philosophical inquiry as the highest human vocation. This idea is presented less through systematic argument than through Strauss’s own engagement with canonical political texts—an engagement designed to illustrate both the excitement and the fulfillment of philosophical dialogue. The political virtues, while defended on the surface of the text, remain as unsettled by the end as they were in the introduction.

The Revival of Classical Political Philosophy: A Critique

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Rothman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Study ◽  
The University ◽  
Moral Nihilism

Perhaps no single individual has had as much impact on the discipline of political science during the past several years as has Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago. Both he and his disciples (and they are disciples in the “classical” sense) have engaged in a full scale attack upon the premises underlying the contemporary study of politics.Strauss argues that these premises are illfounded and self-contradictory, and, if taken seriously, lead to moral nihilism. He contends, further, that another set of premises, those of “classical natural right,” which treat man in terms of his natural end and his relation to the “mysterious whole,” are capable of providing a more adequate foundation for the study of politics.

A Reply to Rothman

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cropsey
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right

Readers of Stanley Rothman's article “The Revival of Classical Political Philosophy: A Critique” will be aware that the title he has chosen does not indicate the full scope of his endeavor. He has in fact attempted to state and criticize the grounds of classical political and natural philosophy, and to state and in a certain measure defend the grounds of modern social and natural science. Exceptional resources of scholarship and analytic power would be needed to dispose of those tremendous themes, which I believe Rothman has not succeeded in doing. A prominent purpose of Rothman's paper is to criticize the work of Professor Leo Strauss and of some of his students, on the view that he, and after his instruction they, are the animators of the attempted revival of classical doctrines concerning natural right. The attempt to revive natural right is presented as complementary with a belief in the weakness of social science as now understood by the majority of academic and other professionals. The purpose of the present reflections on Rothman's article is to see how far he has made a valid criticism of the classics and of the men he regards as their attempted restorers; and to consider the soundness of his views on the received sciences.

CULTURE AND LAW IN WEIMAR JEWISH MEDIEVALISM: LEO STRAUSS'S CRITIQUE OF JULIUS GUTTMANN

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN ALDES WURGAFT
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Jewish Historian ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Hermann Cohen

The German Jewish historian of political philosophy Leo Strauss is best known for mature works in which he proposed the existence of an esoteric tradition in political philosophy, attacked the liberal tradition of political thought, and defended a classical approach to natural right against its modern counterparts. This essay demonstrates that in his youth, beginning during a scholarly apprenticeship at the Berlin Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Strauss championed “medievals” (rather than ancients) against “moderns,” and did so through a sparring match with his postdoctoral supervisor Julius Guttmann, whom he cast in the role of representative “modern.” While for Guttmann the stakes were scholarly, for Strauss they were political. Strauss's Weimar Jewish “medievalism” was a deliberate rejection of the tradition of modern Jewish thought Strauss associated with Guttmann's teacher Hermann Cohen, whom Strauss accused of neglecting the political distinctiveness of Jewish thought. While the conflict between Strauss and Guttmann has been neglected in much of the literature on Strauss, it served as the crucible in which many of his mature views, including his famous exoteric (sometimes called “esoteric”) writing thesis, began to take shape.

Leo Strauss's Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hwa Yol Jung
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right

The political thought of Leo Strauss commands the respect and admiration of even his critics. His critical intellectual carpentry is sharp, cutting, and often rebuking. His criticism of modernity, whether it be that of Machiavelli, Max Weber, an existentialist, or a scientific political scientist, is inspired by and deeply rooted in the Greek intellectualistic essentialism, particularly that of Aristotle, and the age-old tradition of nature and natural right as is shown in his work, Natural Right and History

Moral Order in the Western Tradition: Harry Jaffa's Grand Synthesis of Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-206
Author(s):  
Robert P. Kraynak
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Natural Right

AbstractHarry V. Jaffa has inspired a generation of students in American political thought by defending the natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence and of Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa is also a defender of Leo Strauss's idea of a “political science of natural right,” which Strauss drew primarily from classical Greek political philosophy. Jaffa's efforts to defend the several strands of the Western natural right tradition led him to develop a grand synthesis of “Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria,” which I argue is a noble but untenable way of upholding the moral order of the West—and a departure from the intentions of Leo Strauss.

Strauss Read from France

1991 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-245
Author(s):  
David R. Lachterman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
French Translation ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
History Of

Leo Strauss has long had a “scholarly” presence among French orientalists and medievalists, thanks to his fundamentally important works on the falasifa and Maimonides, two of which were published in France in the 1930's. To French political “thinkers,” caught as they were for so long, like Laocoon, in the serpentine toils of Stalinism, Maoism and other variants of “Marxism,” including its decadently ironic postmodern negations, Strauss seems to have been a largely unknown name. Some interpreters of the history of modern political philosophy have, of course, taken note of his analyses of Machiavelli, for example, and the French translation of Natural Right and History was in fact first published in 1954.

Comedy, Tragedy, and Saint Thomas More

Moreana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (Number 176) (1) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Foley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
Biblical Religion

The twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss uses a quotation from Thomas More to suggest that Christianity is akin to tragedy while philosophy is closer to comedy. This article responds to Strauss’s contention by examining the implications of characterizing philosophy or biblical religion as either comic or tragic; it then analyzes Thomas More’s understanding of Christianity in order to see whether More shares Strauss’s opinion. The paper concludes that he does not: Thomas More sees Christian life and thought as essentially “comic” in both structure and orientation.

scholarly journals LEO STRAUSSAS: ISTORIZMAS, POLITINĖ FILOSOFIJA IR POLITIKOS MOKSLAS

Problemos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 96-106
Author(s):  
Mindaugas Stoškus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Main Ideas

Straipsnyje analizuojamas Leo Strausso iškeltas istorizmo poveikis politinei filosofijai. Aptariamos istorizmo sąsajos su pozityvizmu, moderniąja politine filosofija. Aiškinamasi, kuo remdamasis istorizmas iš mokslinio diskurso eliminuoja pagrindines klasikinės politinės filosofijos problemas apie teisingumą, prigimtinę teisę ir geriausią režimą, svarstoma, kokį poveikį tai padarė visai politinei filosofijai. Straipsnyje analizuojama, kaip ir kokias istoristines nuostatas perėmė naujas politikos mokslas, kaip tai paveikė politikos mokslininkų požiūrį į filosofinę politinės tikrovės analizę. Nagrinėjamos Strausso idėjos apie istorizmo vidinius prieštaravimus, jo nesugebėjimą nuosekliai pagrįsti nei filosofinio mąstymo ribotumo, nei istoristinio požiūrio patikimumo. Iškeliama ir ginama mintis, jog politikos mokslas, perėmęs istoristines nuostatas, taip pat neišvengiamai įsivelia į prieštaravimus.Leo Strauss: Historicism, Political Philosophy, and Political ScienceMindaugas Stoškus SummaryThe aim of this article is to discuss the influence of historicism on political philosophy which was revealed by Leo Strauss. The paper deals with links between historicism, modern political philosophy, and political science. Reasons are explicated for historicist elimination from scientific discourse of the main problems of classical political philosophy: justice, natural right, best political regime. The paper discusses the main ideas of historicism, which political science absorbed, and Strauss`s exposed contradictions of historicism, its inability to prove consistently the narrowness of philosophical thinking or the reliability of historicist attitude. Political science also becomes self-contradictory as much as it uses historicist approach.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document