article

Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973), was a German born Jew and naturalized American political philosopher, who specialized in the study of classical philosophy. He spent most of his career as a Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of devoted students, as well as publishing fifteen books. Since his death, he has come to be regarded, although debatably, as a leading intellectual source of neoconservatism in the United States.

Biography

Leo Strauss was born in the small town of Kirchhain, (near Marburg), Hessen, in Germany on September 20, 1899, to Hugo and Jennie Strauss née David. According to Allan Bloom's 1974 obituary in Political Theory, Strauss "was raised as an Orthodox Jew", but in fact, the family’s relationship to Orthodox practice was not completely faithful, and may be categorized as conservative in light of the German language study Mittelhessen- eine Heimat für Juden? Das Schicksal der Familie Strauss aus Kirchhain or Central Hessen- a homeland for Jews? The fate of the Strauss Family from Kirchhain by Joachim Lüders and Ariane Wehner, 1989. Nevertheless, Strauss spoke about his early life before a public lecture with his longtime friend Jacob Klein in 1970 at St. John's College. In "A Giving of Accounts", originally published in The College 22(1), and later reprinted in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, Strauss characterized coming from a "conservative, even orthodox Jewish home", but one in which there was little Jewish knowledge beyond a strict adherence to ceremonial laws. His father owned and ran, together with a brother, a farming supplies and livestock business that they inherited from their father, Meyer (1835-1919) - a prominent and outspoken leader of the Jewish community, to whom Leo Strauss dedicated his second book. After attending the Kirchhain Volksschule and the private, Protestant Rektoratsschule, Leo Strauss was enrolled at the famous Gymnasium Philippinum in nearby Marburg (from which Johannes Althusius and Carl J. Friedrich also graduated) in Easter 1912 and graduated in 1917. During that time, he boarded with the family of the Marburg Cantor Strauss (no relation), a home that had been a meeting place for the followers of the neo-Kantian philosopher, Herman Cohen. He served in the German army during the last stage of World War One from July 5, 1917 to December 1918.

Strauss subsequently enrolled in the University of Hamburg, where he received his doctorate in 1921 with a thesis entitled "On the Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophical Doctrine of F. H. Jacobi," which was supervised by Ernst Cassirer. He also attended courses at the Universities of Freiburg and Marburg, including some by Edmund Husserl and his pupil Martin Heidegger. Strauss kept some distance from Heidegger. Strauss's closest friend was Jacob Klein but he also was on friendly and engaged intellectual terms with Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Julius Guttman, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Franz Rosenzweig (to whom Strauss dedicated his first book), Gershom Scholem, Alexander Altmann, and the great Arabist Paul Kraus, who married Strauss's sister Bettina (Strauss and his wife later adopted their baby child, after both parents had died in the Near East). With several of these old friends, Strauss carried on vigorous epistolary exchanges later in life; and many of these letters are now being published in the Gesammelte Schriften as well as elsewhere, some in translation from the German. Strauss had also been engaged in an important discourse with Carl Schmitt, who was instrumental in Strauss' receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship, but after Strauss had left Germany, he ceased communication with Schmitt and would not reply to overtures by the latter after the end of the War, either.

After receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1932, Strauss left his position at the Academy of Jewish Research in Berlin for Paris. He returned to Germany only once, for a few short days twenty years later. In Paris he married Marie (Miriam) Bernsohn, a widow with a young child whom he had known previously in Germany. He adopted his wife's son and never fathered a biological child. Strauss became a lifelong friend of Alexandre Kojeve, and was on friendly terms with Raymond Aron, Alexandre Koyre, and Etienne Gilson. Because of the Nazi rise to power, he refused to return to his native country. Strauss found shelter, after some vicissitudes, in England where, in 1935 he was able to gain a temporary position at University of Cambridge. While in England, he became a close friend of R. H. Tawney. Unable to find permanent employment in England, Strauss moved in 1937 to the United States, under the patronage of Harold Laski, who generously bestowed on Strauss a lectureship for a few weeks that was at his disposal. After a short and precarious stint as a Research Fellow in the Department of History at Columbia University, Strauss secured a tenuous position at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where, between 1938 and 1948, he eked out a hand-to-mouth living on the political science faculty. In 1944, he became a US citizen and in 1949 he was hired as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and received for the first time in his life a decent living wage. Strauss held the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professorship there until 1969 when he moved to Claremont Graduate School in California for a year and then to St. John's College in 1970, where he was the Scott Buchanan Distinguished Scholar in Residence until his death in 1973.

Philosophy

For Strauss, politics and philosophy were necessarily intertwined at their roots. He regarded the trial and death of Socrates as the moment in which political philosophy, as understood by Strauss, came to light. Until Socrates' life and death in Athens, philosophers were relatively free to pursue the study of nature and politics. Strauss mentions in The City and Man that Aristotle traces the first philosopher concerned with politics to have been a city planner many generations before Socrates. Yet Socrates was not a political philosopher in this sense- the sense that is generally understood today- a man or women who philosophically studies political phenomena. Rather, Socrates was the first philosopher who was forced by the polis, or city, to treat philosophy politically. Thus Strauss considered one of the most important moments in the history of philosophy to be the argument by Socrates and his students that philosophers or scientists could not study nature without considering their own human nature, which, in the famous phrase of Aristotle, is "political." The trial of Socrates was the first act of a "political" philosophy, and Plato’s dialogues were the purest form of the political treatment of philosophy, their sole comprehensive theme being the life and death of Socrates, the philosopher par excellence for Strauss and many of his students.

Strauss made the distinction between "scholars" and "philosophers" and called himself a scholar, not a philosopher. He wrote that today, most who call themselves philosophers are, at best, mere scholars, who are cautious and methodical, not bold. Still, he argued that while the great thinkers are bold, they also see pitfalls whereas the scholar sees sure ground. Finally, scholars become possible because the great thinkers disagree on fundamental points, and these disagreements create the possibility for scholars to reason.

In Natural Right and History Strauss begins with a critique of the epistemology of Max Weber, follows with a brief engagement with the relativism of Martin Heidegger (who goes unnamed), and continues with a discussion of the evolution of Natural Right with an analysis of the thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. He ends with a critique of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke. At the heart of the book are the sections of classical political philosophy, the work of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. A selection of Strauss's essays published under the title, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism offers an introduction to his thinking: "Social Science and Humanism", "An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism", "On Classical Political Philosophy", "Thucydides and the Meaning of Political History", and "How to Begin to Study Medieval Philosophy" are among his topics. Much of his philosophy is a reaction to the works of Heidegger. Indeed, Strauss wrote that Heidegger's thinking must be understood and confronted before any complete formulation of modern political theory is possible. For Strauss, Plato was the philosopher who could match Heidegger.

Strauss partially approached the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard through his understanding of Heidegger which he placed under the general rubric of "existentialism", a movement with a "flabby periphery" but a "hard center" (see his 1961 essay, Relativism and the Study of Man). He wrote that Nietzsche was the first philosopher to properly understand relativism, an idea grounded in a general acceptance of Hegelian historicism. Yet Martin Heidegger sanitized and politicized Nietzsche. Where Nietzsche saw that "our own principles, including the belief in progress, will become as relative as all earlier principles had shown themselves to be" and "the only way out seems to be that one turn one's back on this lesson of history, that one voluntarily choose life-giving delusion instead of deadly truth, that one fabricate a myth." Heidegger saw this- the nihilism that Nietzsche regarded as unmitigated tragedy- as an opening or opportunity for a new horizon of human existence- a "myth" formed by mankind and not guided by a defective Western conception of Being Heidegger traced to Plato. For Strauss, as evidenced in his published correspondence with Alexandre Kojève, the possibility that Hegel was correct when he postulated an end of history meant an end to philosophy, and an end to nature as understood by classical political philosophy. Strauss was much more sympathetic to Nietzsche's terror at this prospect compared to Heidegger's belief that nihilism, properly understood, contained the possibility of mankind's salvation.

Strauss on reading

In 1952 Strauss published Persecution and the Art of Writing; a work that advanced the possibility that philosophers wrote esoterically to avoid persecution by the state or religious authority, while also being able to reach potential philosophers within the pious faithful. From this point on in his scholarship, Strauss deepened his conception of this means of communication between philosophers and “potential knowers”. Stemming from his study of Maimonides and Al Farabi, and then extended to his reading of Plato (he mentions particularly the discussion of writing in the Phaedrus) Strauss thought that an esoteric text was the proper type for philosophic learning. Rather than simply outlining the philosopher's thoughts, the esoteric text forces readers to do their own thinking and learning. As Socrates says in the Phaedrus writing does not respond when questioned, but this type of writing invites a kind of dialogue with the reader, thereby reducing the problems of the written word. It was therefore also a teaching tool, and even a filter to help prevent the creation of Alcibiades-like students. One of the political dangers Strauss pointed to was the danger of students' too quickly accepting dangerous ideas. This was indeed also relevant in the trial of Socrates, where his relationship with Alcibiades was used against him. Ultimately, Strauss believed that philosophers offered both an "exoteric" or salutary teaching, and an "esoteric" or true teaching, which was concealed from the general reader. By maintaining this distinction, Strauss is often accused of having written esoterically himself. This opinion is perhaps encouraged because many of Strauss' works are difficult and sometimes mysterious. Moreover, a careful reading of Strauss will show that he also emphasized that writers using this lost form of writing often left contradictions and other excuses to examine the writing more carefully. There are many examples of this in Strauss own published works, and thus is a source for much debate surrounding Strauss.

There therefore exists a controversy surrounding Strauss' interpretation of the existing philosophical canon. Strauss believed that the writings of many philosophers contained both an exoteric and esoteric teaching which is often not perceived by modern academics. Most famously, he believed that Plato's Republic should never have been read as a proposal for a real regime (as it is in the works of Karl Popper for example). But, according to Strauss, generally this kind of exoteric/esoteric dichotomy became unused by the time of Kant. Similarly well known are his espousals of the philosophical credentials of Machiavelli and Xenophon.

Strauss on politics

According to Strauss, modern Social Science was flawed. It claimed the ground by which truth could be discovered on an unexamined acceptance of the fact-value distinction. Strauss doubted the fact-value distinction was a fundamental category of the mind and studied the evolution of the concept from its roots in Enlightenment philosophy to Max Weber, a thinker Strauss credited with a “serious and noble mind”. Weber wanted to separate values from science, but according to Strauss was really a derivative thinker, deeply influenced by Nietzsche’s relativism. Therefore, Strauss treated politics not as something that could be studied from afar. A political scientist examining politics with a value-free scientific eye, for Strauss, was impossible, not just a tragic self-delusion. Positivism, the heir to the traditions of both Auguste Comte and Max Weber, in making purportedly value-free judgments, failed the ultimate test of justifying its own existence, which would require a value-judgment.

While modern liberalism had stressed the pursuit of individual liberty as its highest goal, Strauss felt that there should be a greater interest in the problem of human excellence and political virtue. Through his writings, Strauss constantly raised the question of how, and to what extent, freedom and excellence can coexist. Without deciding this issue, Strauss refused to make do with any simplistic or one-sided resolutions of the Socratic question: What is the good for the city and man?

Liberalism and nihilism

Strauss taught that liberalism, strictly speaking, contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism. The first was a “brutal” nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. These ideologies, both descendents of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics and moral standards and replace it by force with a supreme authority from which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. The second type- the ‘gentle’ nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies- was a kind of value-free aimlessness and hedonism, which he saw permeating the fabric of contemporary American society. In the belief that 20th century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this state. The resultant study lead him to revive classical political philosophy as a source by which political action could be judged.

Noble lies and deadly truths

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether "noble lies" have any role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. Are "myths" needed to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure a stable society? Or can men and women dedicated to relentlessly examining, in Nietzsche's language, those "deadly truths", flourish freely? Thus, is there a limit to the political, and what can be known absolutely? In The City and Man, Strauss discusses the myths outlined in Plato's Republic that are required for all governments. These include a belief that the state's land belongs to it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately, and that citizenship is rooted in something more than the accidents of birth.

According to Strauss, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies had mistaken the city-in-speech described in Plato's Republic for a blueprint for regime reform--which it was not. Strauss quotes Cicero, "The Republic does not bring to light the best possible regime but rather the nature of political things- the nature of the city." (History of Political Philosophy, p.68). Strauss himself argued in many publications that the city-in-speech was unnatural, precisely because "it is rendered possible by the abstraction from eros (Strauss' italics). (HPP, p.60). The city-in-speech abstracted from eros, or bodily needs, thus it could never guide politics in the manner Popper claimed. Though very skeptical of "progress," Strauss was equally skeptical about political agendas of "return" (which is the term he used in contrast to progress). In fact, he was consistently suspicious of anything claiming to be a solution to an old political or philosophical problem. He spoke of the danger in trying to ever finally resolve the debate between rationalism and traditionalism in politics. In particular, along with many in the pre-World War II German Right, he feared people trying to force a "world state" to come into being in the future, thinking that it would inevitably become a tyranny.

Ancients and Moderns

Strauss constantly stressed the importance of two dichotomies in political philosophy: Athens and Jerusalem (Reason vs. Revelation) and Ancient versus Modern political philosophy. The "Ancients" were the Socratic philosophers and their intellectual heirs, and the "Moderns" start with Niccolo Machiavelli. The contrast between Ancients and Moderns was understood to be related to the public presentation of the possibly unresolvable tension between Reason and Revelation. The Socratics, reacting to the first Greek philosophers, brought philosophy back to earth, and hence back to the marketplace, making it more political. The Moderns reacted to the dominance of revelation in medieval society by promoting the possibilities of Reason very strongly — which in turn leads to problems in modern politics and society. In particular, Thomas Hobbes, under the influence of Bacon, re-oriented political science to what was most solid, but most low in man, setting a precedent for John Locke, and the later economic approach to political thought, such as initially in David Hume, and Adam Smith.

Not unlike Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Thomas Jefferson, Strauss believed that the vices of a democratic regime must be known (and not left unquestioned) so that its virtues might triumph. However, insofar as his teaching suggested that the argument for the pre-eminence of democracy is not an apodictic principle (i.e. not self evident or beyond contradiction), he has gained the reputation for being an enemy to democracy.

Strauss in the Public View

Strauss is a controversial and much caricatured figure in some academic and journalistic circles. (M.F. Burnyeat, "Sphinx Without a Secret," New York Review of Books, May 30, 1985). This has been both for his criticisms of various modern movements and thinkers (including many conservatives), and because some of his students and proteges, such as Allan Bloom, Harry V. Jaffa, Joseph Cropsey, Paul Wolfowitz, and Harvey C. Mansfield, are themselves controversial public figures. Many of these people are now frequently referred to as Straussians.

Yet Shadia Drury of the University of Regina, author of 1999's Leo Strauss and the American Right, claims Strauss' thought itself is dangerous and anti-democratic. She writes that Strauss taught different things to different students, and inculcated an elitist strain in American political leaders which is linked to imperialist militarism and Christian fundementalism. Drury believes that Strauss taught some of his students to believe "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them. .. The Weimar Republic was his model of liberal democracy for which he had huge contempt." Drury adds, "Liberalism in Weimar, in Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews." Another well known critic of Strauss is Anne Norton, although she is primarily an antagonist of Straussians rather than Strauss himself.

Paul Wolfowitz was a student of Strauss; Wolfowitz attended two courses which Strauss taught on Plato and Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. Indeed, James Mann claims that Wolfowitz chose that University because Strauss taught there and believed him to be "a unique figure, an irreplaceable asset," recommended to him by teacher Allan Bloom who taught at Cornell when Wolfowitz was an undergraduate there. Wolfowitz himself has claimed to be more of a student of Albert Wohlstetter.

In Saul Bellow's quasi-biographical novel Ravelstein, (2001) the minor character, Davarr, is based on Strauss, while the central character of Ravelstein represents Strauss' protégé Allan Bloom.

In 2004 the BBC produced a controversial three-part documentary on the threat from organised terrorism called the Power of Nightmares. This documentary attempts to show how Strauss' teachings, among others, influenced the neo-conservatives and thus, United States foreign policy, especially following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The connection to Strauss is established via students such as Wolfowitz. A central theme of the film is that the Bush regime has created the myth of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda ceaselessly threatening the United States; the constant fear of Al-Qaeda serves to unite Americans and require of them unity and obedience to their political leaders. The film points out that virtually no evidence exists of such an organization with its much-talked-about "sleeper cells," that publicly reported threats are manufactured and over-hyped, and that Al-Qaeda is simply an idea, popular chiefy among disaffected Islamic youth, not a world-wide terrorist organization posing a major threat to the U.S..

Reading Leo Strauss by Steven Smith re-assesses the question of the link between Strauss and neoconservative thought, arguing that the allegation misreads Strauss' published views.*

Quotations

Bibliography (of Published texts)

  • Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Heinrich Meier, Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996-present; 3 volumes thus far, as follows: vol. 1, Die Religionskritik Spinozas und zugehoerige Schriften; vol. 2, Philosophie und Gesetz, Fruehe Schriften; vol. 3, Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft und zugehoerige Schriften-Briefe.
  • Leo Strauss: The Early Writings (1921-1932), trans. Michael Zank, from the preceding, Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.
  • La Critique de la religion chez Hobbes: une contribution a la comprehension des Lumieres (1933-34), Paris: Presses universitaires de France; a translation, by Corine Pelluchon, of an unpublished and unfinished manuscript of a book on Hobbes, written 1933-34, and first published in the Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3.
  • Die Religionskritik Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschaft: Untersuchungen zu Spinozas Theologisch-politischen Traktat, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1930.
  • Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, New York: Schocken, 1965; a translation of the preceding, by Elsa M. Sinclair.
  • Philosophie und Gesetz: Beitraege zum Verstandnis Maimunis und seiner Vorlaeufer, Berlin: Schocken, 1935.
  • Philosophy and Law, Albany: SUNY Press, 1995; a translation of the preceding, by Eve Adler.
  • Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft in ihrer Genesis, Neuweid am Rhein: Hermann Luchterland, 1965 (the published version of a book completed in 1936 but for political reasons unpublishable at that time).
  • The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936; a translation, with some notable modifications, of the preceding, by Elsa M. Sinclair.
  • "The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon," Social Research 6 (1939) 502-36.
  • “On a New Interpretation of Plato’s Political Philosophy,” Social Research 13 (1946) 326-67.
  • ”On Collingwood’s Philosophy of History,” Review of Metaphysics 5 (June, 1952) 559-86.
  • "On the Intention of Rousseau," Social Research 14 (1947) 455-87.
  • On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero in On Tyranny, Rev ed. New York: Free Press (orig. publ. 1948).
  • Persecution and the Art of Writing, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1952.
  • Natural Right and History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
  • Thoughts on Machiavelli, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958.
  • What is Political Philosophy?, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959.
  • History of Political Philosophy, co-editor with Joseph Cropsey, 3rd. ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • The City and Man, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
  • Socrates and Aristophanes, New York: Basic Books, 1966.
  • Liberalism Ancient and Modern, New York: Basic Books, 1968.
  • Xenophon's Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the "Oeconomicus", Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970.
  • Xenophon's Socrates, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972.
  • The Argument and the Action of Plato's LAWS, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
  • Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, with an introduction by Thomas L. Pangle, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
  • The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss—Essays and Lectures by Leo Strauss, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
  • On Plato's Symposium, ed. Seth Benardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
  • Faith and Political Philosophy: the Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, 1934-1964, ed. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

Writings about Maimonides and Jewish philosophy

  • Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought, ed. Kenneth Hart Green, Albany: State University Press, 1997.
  • Spinoza's Critique of Religion
  • Philosophy and Law
  • "Quelques remarques sur la science politique de Maimonide et de Farabi," Revue des Etudes juives 100 bis (1937) 1-37.
  • "Der Ort der Vorsehungslehre nach der Ansicht Maimunis," Monatschrift fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 81 (1937) 448-56.
  • "Maimonides' Statement on Political Science," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 22 (1953) 115-30.
  • "Notes on Maimonides' Book of Knowledge,' in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to G. G. Scholem, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967, pages 269-83.
  • "How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed," in The Guide of the Perplexed, Volume One, translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
  • "The Literary Character of The Guide for the Perplexed" in Persecution and the Art of Writing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952, 38-94.
  • Maimonide, ed. Remi Brague, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1988.

Bibliography on Leo Strauss

  • "A Giving of Accounts," Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity – Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought, ed. Kenneth H. Green. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997.
  • Bloom, Allan, "Leo Strauss," in Giants and Dwarfs: Essays 1960-1990, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990, 235-56.
  • Brague, Rémi, "Leo Strauss and Maimonides," in Leo Strauss's Thought, ed. Alan Udoff, Boulder: Lynne Reiner, 1991, 93-114.
  • Bruell, Christopher, “A Return to Classical Political Philosophy and the Understanding of the American Founding,” Review of Politics 53 (1991) 173-186.
  • Drury, Shadia B., Leo Strauss and the American Right. Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
  • Green, Kenneth, Jew and Philosopher – The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
  • Holmes, Stephen, Anatomy of Antiliberalism Harvard University Press 1996, ISBN 0674031857.
  • Ivry, Alfred L., "Leo Strauss on Maimonides" in Leo Strauss’s Thought, ed. Alan Udoff. Boulder: Lynne Reiner, 1991, 75-91.
  • Kinzel, Till, Platonische Kulturkritik in Amerika. Studien zu Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 2002.
  • Kochin, Michael S., "Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss’s Persecution and the Art of Writing." The Review of Politics 64 (Spring 2002): 261-283.
  • Macpherson, C. B., “Hobbes’s Bourgeois Man,” in Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
  • McWilliams, Wilson Carey, “Leo Strauss and the Dignity of American Political Thought,” Review of Politics 60 (1998) 231-46.
  • Meier, Heinrich, "How Strauss Became Strauss," in Enlightening Revolutions: Essays in Honor of Ralph Lerner, ed. Svetozar Minkov, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006, pp. 363-82.
  • Meier, Heinrich, "Editor's Introduction" to each of the volumes of the Gesammelte Schriften, Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996-present (three volumes thus far).
  • Meier, Heinrich, Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 183 pages, 2006.
  • Meier, Heinrich, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 136 pages, 1995.
  • Melzer, Arthur. "Esotericism and the Critique of Historicism." American Political Science Review. 100, (2006) 279-295.
  • Minowitz, Peter, “Machiavellianism Come of Age? Leo Strauss on Modernity and Economics,” The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993) 157-97.
  • Momigliano, Arnaldo, "Hermeneutics and Classical Political Thought in Leo Strauss," in Essays on Ancient and Modern Judaism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, 178-89.
  • Norton, Anne, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 2004.
  • Pangle, Thomas L., Leo Strauss: An Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 182 pages, 2006.
  • Pangle, Thomas L., “Leo Strauss’s Perspective on Modern Politics,” Perspectives on Political Science 33:4 (Fall, 2004), 197-203.
  • Pangle, Thomas L., “The Epistolary Dialogue Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin,” Review of Politics 53:1 (1991), 100-125.
  • Pelluchon, Corine, Leo Strauss: une autre raison d'autres Lumieres; Essai sur la crise de la rationalite contemporaine, Paris: J. Vrin, 2005.
  • Smith, Steven, Reading Leo Strauss, University of Chicago Press, 256 pages, 2006. ISBN 0226764028
  • Sullivan, Andrew. Unknown Titles. Andrew Sullivan an English-American journalist, blogger and former editor of The New Republic has published on Strauss and Neoconservatism.
  • Tarcov, Nathan, “Philosophy and History: Tradition and Interpretation in the Work of Leo Strauss,” Polity 16 (1983), 5-29.
  • Tarcov, Nathan, “On a Certain Critique of ‘Straussianism,’” Review of Politics 53 (1991), 3-18.
  • Tarcov, Nathan and Thomas L. Pangle, "Epilogue: Leo Strauss and the History of Political Philosophy", in: Strauss, Leo and Joseph Cropsey (eds.), History of Political Philosophy (1963), Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1987 (Third Edition), pp. 907-938.
  • Verskin, Alan, "Reading Strauss on Maimonides: A New Approach,", Journal of Textual Reasoning Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 2004)*http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/tr/volume3/verskin.html

Bibliography on Strauss Family

  • Lüders, Joachim and Ariane Wehner (1989). Mittelhessen - eine Heimat für Juden? Das Schicksal der Familie Strauss aus Kirchhain. Marburg: Gymnasium Philippinum. (Title translates to English as Central Hessen- a homeland for Jews? The fate of the Strauss Family from Kirchhain.)

References

  • Ted V. McAllister. 1996. Revolt Against Modernity : Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin & the Search for Postliberal Order. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
  • Leo Strauss. 1958. Thoughts on Machiavelli. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

See also

External links

1899 births | 1973 deaths | 20th century philosophers | American philosophers | Columbia University alumni | Jewish-American scientists | Jewish American writers | Political scientists | University of Chicago faculty

Leo Strauss | Leo Strauss | Leo Strauss | 레오 스트라우스 | Leo Strauss | ליאו שטראוס | Leo Strauss | レオ・シュトラウス | Leo Strauss | Leo Strauss | Leo Strauss | Leo Strauss

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Leo Strauss".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world