Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History
Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History

Author: Jeffrey A. Bernstein

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2015-05-05

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1438456530

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In Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History, Jeffrey A. Bernstein explores how the thought of Leo Strauss amounts to a model for thinking about the connection between philosophy, Jewish thought, and history. For Bernstein, Strauss shows that a close study of the history of philosophy—from the "ancients" to "medievals" to "moderns"—is necessary for one to appreciate the fundamental distinction between the forms of life Strauss terms "Jerusalem" and "Athens," that is, order through revealed Law and free philosophical thought, respectively. Through an investigation of Strauss's published texts; examination of his intellectual biography and history; and making use of correspondence, archival materials, and seminar transcripts, Bernstein shows how Strauss's concern with the relation between Judaism and philosophy spanned his entire career. His findings will be of use to those interested in the thought of Strauss, the history of Jewish thought, and the relation between religion, philosophy, and politics.

Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History
Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History

Author: Jeffrey A. Bernstein

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2015-05-05

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1438456514

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Explores how the thought of Leo Strauss amounts to a model for thinking about the connection between philosophy, Jewish thought, and history. In Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History, Jeffrey A. Bernstein explores how the thought of Leo Strauss amounts to a model for thinking about the connection between philosophy, Jewish thought, and history. For Bernstein, Strauss shows that a close study of the history of philosophy—from the “ancients” to “medievals” to “moderns”—is necessary for one to appreciate the fundamental distinction between the forms of life Strauss terms “Jerusalem” and “Athens,” that is, order through revealed Law and free philosophical thought, respectively. Through an investigation of Strauss’s published texts; examination of his intellectual biography and history; and making use of correspondence, archival materials, and seminar transcripts, Bernstein shows how Strauss’s concern with the relation between Judaism and philosophy spanned his entire career. His findings will be of use to those interested in the thought of Strauss, the history of Jewish thought, and the relation between religion, philosophy, and politics.

Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought
Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought

Author: Jeffrey A. Bernstein

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 1438483961

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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.

Philosophy and Law
Philosophy and Law

Author: Leo Strauss

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1438421435

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Leo Strauss's Philosophy and Law contains a groundbreaking study of the political philosophy of Maimonides and his Islamic predecessors, and it offers an argument on behalf of that philosophy which is also a profound critique of modern philosophy. Here is an entirely new and complete English translation of Strauss's work, which takes as its ideal the exacting standards of accuracy that Strauss himself emphasized in his own work. It includes a prefatory essay introducing the argument of each of the four sections of Philosophy and Law. This is a fresh and challenging treatment of the perennial conflict between reason and revelation, or philosophy and religion. Strauss's key contention in this book is that the most influential modern approaches to this conflict have run aground in ways that reflect their loss of key insights developed by the medieval philosophers of Islam and their Jewish pupils, especially Maimonides. Strauss challenges the modern view that scientific enlightenment must ultimately amount to atheism, and that therefore there can be no such thing as enlightened religion. Through a careful, original, and detailed treatment of central works of the medieval Islamic-Jewish tradition, especially Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, Strauss aims to recover their key insights into this question.

Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism
Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism

Author: Corine Pelluchon

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1438449682

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How can Leo Strauss's critique of modernity and his return to tradition, especially Maimonides, help us to save democracy from its inner dangers? In this book, Corine Pelluchon examines Strauss's provocative claim that the conception of man and reason in the thought of the Enlightenment is self-destructive and leads to a new tyranny. Writing in a direct and lucid style, Pelluchon avoids the polemics that have characterized recent debates concerning the links between Strauss and neoconservatives, particularly concerns over Strauss's relation to the extreme right in Germany. Instead she aims to demystify the origins of Strauss's thought and present his relationship to German and Jewish thought in the early twentieth century in a manner accessible not just to the small circles devoted to the study of Strauss, but to a larger public. Strauss's critique of modernity is, she argues, constructive; he neither condemns modernity as a whole nor does he desire a retreat back to the Ancients, where slaves existed and women were not considered citizens. The question is to know whether we can learn something from the Ancients and from Maimonides—and not merely about them.

Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss

Author: Neil G. Robertson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-05-28

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1509516344

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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.

Leo Strauss Between Weimar and America
Leo Strauss Between Weimar and America

Author: Adi Armon

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-09-25

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 3030243893

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This is the first book-length examination of the impact Leo Strauss’ immigration to the United States had on this thinking. Adi Armon weaves together a close reading of unpublished seminars Strauss taught at the University of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s with an interpretation of his later works, all of which were of course written against the backdrop of the Cold War. First, the book describes the intellectual environment that shaped the young Strauss’ worldview in the Weimar Republic, tracing those aspects of his thought that changed and others that remained consistent up until his immigration to America. Armon then goes on to explore the centrality of Karl Marx to Strauss’s intellectual biography. By analyzing an unpublished seminar Strauss taught with Joseph Cropsey at the University of Chicago in 1960, Armon shows how Strauss’ fragmentary, partial engagement with Marx in writing obscured the important role that Marxism actually played as an intellectual challenge to his later political thinking. Finally, the book explores the manifestations of Straussian doctrine in postwar America through reading Strauss’ The City and Man (1964) as a representative of his political teaching.

Leo Strauss and the Theopolitics of Culture
Leo Strauss and the Theopolitics of Culture

Author: Philipp von Wussow

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2020-04-15

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1438478410

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2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In this book, Philipp von Wussow argues that the philosophical project of Leo Strauss must be located in the intersection of culture, religion, and the political. Based on archival research on the philosophy of Strauss, von Wussow provides in-depth interpretations of key texts and their larger theoretical contexts. Presenting the necessary background in German-Jewish philosophy of the interwar period, von Wussow then offers detailed accounts and comprehensive interpretations of Strauss's early masterwork, Philosophy and Law, his wartime lecture "German Nihilism," the sources and the scope of Strauss's critique of modern "relativism," and a close commentary on the late text "Jerusalem and Athens." With its rare blend of close reading and larger perspectives, this book is valuable for students of political philosophy, continental thought, and twentieth-century Jewish philosophy alike. It is indispensable as a guide to Strauss's philosophical project, as well as to some of the most intricate details of his writings.

Leo Strauss and His Catholic Readers
Leo Strauss and His Catholic Readers

Author: Geoffrey M. Vaughan

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2018-05-11

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0813230438

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This book looks at the work and influence of Leo Strauss in a variety of ways that will be of interest to readers of political philosophy. It will be of particular interest to Catholics and scholars of other religious traditions. Strauss had a great deal of interaction with his contemporary Catholic scholars, and many of his students or their students teach or have taught at Catholic colleges and universities in America. Leo Strauss and His Catholic Readers brings together work by scholars from two continents, some of whom knew Strauss, one of whom was his student at the University of Chicago. The first section of essays considers Catholic responses to Strauss’s project of recovering Classical natural right as against modern individual rights. Some of the authors suggest that his approach can be a fruitful corrective to an uncritical reception of modern ideas. Nevertheless, most point out that the Catholic cannot accept all of Strauss’s project. The second section deals with areas of overlap between Strauss and Catholics. Some of the chapters explore encounters with his contemporary scholars while others turn to more current concerns. The final section approaches the theological-political question itself, a question central to both Strauss’s work and that of the Catholic intellectual tradition. This section of the book considers the relationship of Strauss’s work to Christianity and Christian commitments at a broader level. Because Christianity does not have an explicit political doctrine, Christians have found themselves as rulers, subjects, and citizens in a variety of political regimes. Leo Strauss’s return to Platonic political philosophy can provide a useful lens through which his Catholic readers can assess what it means for there to be a best regime.

Philosophy, History, and Tyranny
Philosophy, History, and Tyranny

Author: Timothy W. Burns

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2016-11-23

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1438462093

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The first comprehensive examination of the debate between Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève on the subject of philosophy and tyranny. 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.