The Story of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Scholar’s Discovery of Plato’s Political Philosophy in Tenth-Century Islam: Leo Strauss’ Early Interest in the Islamic Falāsifa

2018 ◽  
pp. 219-244
Author(s):  
Steven Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Plato's Political Philosophy

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.

scholarly journals After Sócrates. Leo Strauss and the Esoteric Irony

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Basili
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Plato's Political Philosophy

Throughout the philosophical tradition that stems from Plato, Socratic irony has represented an enigma that all interpreters of the Platonic dialogues have had to face from different points of view. In this article I aim to present the peculiar Straussian reading of Socratic irony. According to Leo Strauss, Socratic irony is a key element of Plato’s political philosophy, linked to the «logographic necessity» that rules his texts. I will therefore examine the genesis and the main features of Straussian hermeneutics. I will end the article by highlighting the relevance of the esoteric interpretation of Platonic thought as a conceptual tool that responds to the crisis of modern political philosophy.

Plato’s Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 574-604
Author(s):  
Christopher Bobonich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Period ◽  
Plato's Political Philosophy ◽  
Status Of Women

The dialogues that are most obviously important for Plato’s political philosophy include: the Apology, the Crito, the Gorgias, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. Further, there are many questions of political philosophy that Plato discusses in his dialogues. These topics include, among others: (1) the ultimate ends of the city’s laws and institutions; (2) who should rule, the forms of constitution, and their ranking; (3) what institutions and offices there should be; (4) the nature and extent of citizens’ obligation to obey the laws; (5) the proper criterion of citizenship; (6) the political and social status of women; (7) the purposes of punishment; (8) private property; and (9) slavery. This chapter attempts to provide an overall picture of Plato’s political philosophy, focusing on three moments: the “Socratic” dialogues, including the Apology and the Crito; the great middle-period work, the Republic, along with the Phaedo; and finally, two works from Plato’s last period, the Statesman and the Laws.

Two composite texts from Archbishop Wulfstan's ‘commonplace book’: theDe ecclesiastica consuetudineand theInstitutio beati Amalarii de ecclesiasticis officiis

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 233-271
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Editorial Work

The great monument of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon monastic liturgy, theRegularis concordia, has been particularly fortunate in its twentieth-century devotees. The most prominent was Dom Thomas Symons, who published numerous learned articles on the text and, in 1953, an edition and translation that are still immensely valuable. More recently, Lucia Kornexl has re-edited theConcordiawith its continuous Old English gloss from London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii, and provided an exhaustive collation against the second Latin copy in London, British Library, Cotton Faustina B. iii. Building on this detailed editorial work, Kornexl's introductory chapters also suggest new and helpful ways of regarding the transmission of this text and the authority of its two extant manuscripts.

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.

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