1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455625903321

Autore

Smith Steven B. <1951->

Titolo

Reading Leo Strauss [[electronic resource] ] : politics, philosophy, Judaism / / Steven B. Smith

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, c2006

ISBN

1-282-53786-5

9786612537868

0-226-76390-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (269 p.)

Disciplina

320.01

Soggetti

Political science - Philosophy

Philosophy, Modern - 20th century

Jewish philosophy

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-237) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: why Strauss, why now? -- Jerusalem -- How Jewish was Leo Strauss? -- Gershom Scholem and Leo Strauss : notes toward a German-Jewish dialogue -- Strauss's Spinoza -- Athens -- Leo Strauss's platonic liberalism -- Destruktion or recovery? on Strauss's critique of Heidegger -- Tyranny ancient and modern -- Strauss's America -- WWLSD; or, what would Leo Strauss do?

Sommario/riassunto

Interest in Leo Strauss is greater now than at any time since his death, mostly because of the purported link between his thought and the political movement known as neoconservatism. Steven B. Smith, though, surprisingly depicts Strauss not as the high priest of neoconservatism but as a friend of liberal democracy-perhaps the best defender democracy has ever had. Moreover, in Reading Leo Strauss, Smith shows that Strauss's defense of liberal democracy was closely connected to his skepticism of both the extreme Left and extreme Right. Smith asserts that this philosophical skepticism defined Strauss's thought. It was as a skeptic, Smith argues, that Strauss considered the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between reason and revelation-a conflict Strauss dubbed the "theologico-political problem." Calling this



problem "the theme of my investigations," Strauss asked the same fundamental question throughout his life: what is the relation of the political order to revelation in general and Judaism in particular? Smith organizes his book with this question, first addressing Strauss's views on religion and then examining his thought on philosophical and political issues. In his investigation of these philosophical and political issues, Smith assesses Strauss's attempt to direct the teaching of political science away from the examination of mass behavior and interest group politics and toward the study of the philosophical principles on which politics are based. With his provocative, lucid essays, Smith goes a long way toward establishing a distinctive form of Straussian liberalism.