Classical Political Philosophy Research Articles

The philosopher’s courtly love? Leo strauss, eros, and the law

This essay poses a critical response to Strauss’ political philosophy that takes as its primary object Strauss’ philosophy of Law. It does this by drawing on recent theoretical work in psychoanalytic theory, conceived after Jacques Lacan as another, avowedly non-historicist theory of Law and its relation to eros. The paper has four parts. Part I, ‘The Philosopher’s Desire: Making an Exception, or “The Thing Is...’’’, recounts Strauss’ central account of the complex relationship between philosophy and ‘the city’. Strauss’ Platonic conception of philosophy as the highest species of eros is stressed, which is that aspect of his work which brings it into striking proximity with the Lacanian-psychoanalytic account of the dialectic of desire and the Law. Part II, ‘Of Prophecy and Law’, examines Strauss’ analysis of Law as first presented in his 1935 book, Philosophy and Law, and central to his later ‘rebirth of classical political philosophy’. Part III, ‘Primordial Repression and Primitive Platonism’, is the central part of the paper. Lacan’s psychoanalytic understanding of Law is brought critically to bear upon Strauss’ philosophy of Law. The stake of the position is ultimately how, for Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Law is transcendental to subjectivity, and has a founding symbolic force, which mitigates against speaking of it solely or primarily in terms of more or less inequitable ‘rules of thumb’, as Plato did. Part IV, ‘Is the Law the Thing?’ then asks the question of what eros might underlie Strauss’ paradoxical defense of esoteric writing in the age of ‘permissive’ modern liberalism – that is, outside of the ‘closed’ social conditions which he, above all, alerts us to as the decisive justification for this ancient practice.

F. L. Lisi (éd.) : The Ways of Life in Classical Political Philosophy

Der Band vereinigt zwolf im Dezember 2002 gehaltene Vortrage, die sich mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen Lebensform und Gluck (Eudaimonie) bei Platon und Aristoteles befassen. Im Zentrum stehen sieben Beitrage zu Aristoteles, dessen Standpunkt der Klarung bedarf : Besteht fur ihn die Eudaimonie in praktischer Tatigkeit oder in theoretischer Betrachtung ? Ist sein Glucksbegriff „inklusiv“ oder „dominant“, wird also das Gluck durch die Aktivierung aller Tugenden oder nur durch die Aktivitat des obe...

Leo Strauss, Max Weber, and the Scientific Study of Politics (review)

Nasser Behnegar, Leo Strauss, Max Weber, and the Scientific Study of Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005, 216 pp. First published in 2003, Leo Strauss, Max Weber, and the Scientific Study of Politics has now been released in paperback. The title is somewhat misleading, inasmuch as Weber is only invoked in connection with Strauss' critique of social science. The book's stated objective is to show that 'Leo Strauss is a friend, perhaps an indispensable friend, of the scientific study of politics' (1). Relativism above all galvanized Strauss' belief that returning to classical political philosophy is 'a necessary step in achieving clarity about preferences of any kind' (3). Thus Part I assesses the viability of contemporary alternatives to his conception of a genuine science of politics. The conclusion is announced at the onset: the history of positivism is largely one of 'social science's dissatisfaction with its own achievements' (9). In this vein, the unraveling of Comte's progressive expectations with the advent of the First World War and the ascent of mass democracy, and their ultimate disappointment at the hands of behaviourist and rational choice paradigms, is chronicled. And this lamentable process, it is argued, culminates in political science's steadfast refutation of universally valid moral laws. According to Strauss, however, natural right is a perennial human need; it alone enables judgments about injustice. Hence the rejection of natural law occasions nihilism. But he warns there is no guarantee this repudiation is unwarranted and, therefore, that we must not 'embrace natural right in a spirit of fanatical obscurantism' (59). Rather, deliverance from our present-day sense of despair requires an acute appreciation of the fact that 'only the full awareness of our own perplexity can lead to the realization of the possibilities that remain open to us' (61). The rest of the book is devoted to Strauss' critique of positivism. The demise of natural right, he avers, occurred with the triumph of historicism on the one hand and a fact/value distinction on the other. Part II concentrates on the latter and, for this reason, deals with his chapter on Weber in Natural Right and History because of its 'thematic treatment' of this issue (5). For Strauss, reading Weber is vital to a full understanding of the modern condition, insofar as the idea of irreconcilable value conflicts gives rise to philistine conformism which, in conjunction with an untenable commitment to value-neutrality that vitiates the ascendancy of ultimate principles, undermines moral concerns. This nihilistic Weltanschauung has its origins in the theory of natural causality behind his model of science and allied notion of disenchantment. What is more, it discloses his opinion that conflict is a necessary condition for morality and, it follows, his 'preference for the tragic life' (114). All told, Weber hauntingly illuminates the abiding and seemingly insoluble tension between philosophy and revelation, between human and divine guidance. Strauss hopes that openness to the prospect of faith will put an end to this stand-off and cultivate earnest moral sensitivity. …

Work, Labor, and Artisans in the Modern World

Michael Herzfeld, The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 256 pp. In a recent article in the New York Times (June 7, 2004), Howard French interviewed Mr. Yu, a craftsman in Guangzhou, China (the modern industrial equivalent of 19th century Manchester, England) who makes shoes by hand. His business is thriving despite the availability of some 2.7 billion pairs of Nikes and Rockports produced every year in a nearby town. The only thing he fears, it seems, is competition from someone just like himself: Obsessed with his craft and suspicious of others, he has never even given serious thought to training apprentices, or hiring employees to relieve the burden or even to assure a successor. Mr. Yu, who apparently learned his trade from his father but worked a textile mill for some years until he was laid off, put the matter bluntly: We have a local saying here that says: teach someone your craft and then starve. Howard French calls Mr. Wu a throwback, living in a where the industrial revolution has gone into reverse; but Mr. Wu-though not rich-is happy with his situation, at ease with his station in This is far from the case with the craftsman who are the subject of Michael Herzfeld's ethnography, The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value, set in the town of Rethymno on the island of Crete, in Greece. The Body Impolitic is the most recent in a series of studies by Michael Herzfeld (1985, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1997) exploring the social circulation of value in the European periphery. The product of more than twenty years reflection on the structural conditions of national culture in Greece, the ethnography is a compelling study of the origins of a manifest and troubling dis-ease with the artisan's station in life. Yet the Cretan artisans would find Mr. Wu's proverb about apprenticeship completely on the mark: the public devaluation of their skills aside, for craftsmen, nothing is a greater subject of anxiety than the social relations of production. Herzfeld has gone right to the heart of the condition of the artisan in the modern by examining the conflicted relationship of artisan and apprentice, and his ethnography insists that we look without romantic blinders the brutal realities of craft work. In reflecting on this skillful and impassioned ethnography, it seems to me that both issues-the problem of living in a reverse world and the problem of training within it-have a good deal to do with an argument over the philosophical and pragmatic-cultural distinctions between work and labor. Hannah Arendt's writings on classical political philosophy are a useful resource, I suggest, in conceptualizing the nature of work. The status of the moral universe of the artisan has been the subject of polemics since antiquity, and Herzfeld's contributions to a modern theory of value in The Body Impolitic thoughtfully opens up a discussion of work, culture, modernity, and domination of broad significance to contemporary anthropology. A Hungry Dog Follows His Nose One of the pleasures of the city of Athens for both natives and visitors (traffic jams aside) is the longevity of its bazaar-like commercial patterns. Not only do similar trades still cluster together in neighborhoods (and in a last minute emergency you can easily buy a single needle and a single length of thread) but the street is still a place of production. Carpenters, plumbers, metal workers and leather workers still have their storefronts. Of course this is a fading pattern: as studies of the bazaar in Nepal (Liechty 2003), for example, emphasize, this pattern of clustering depends on a secure system of patronage that relies less on competitive pricing than on competitive social relations within networks of kin and kin-like clients. As customers are driven by new forms of consumption and marketing to abandon that social rationality, the shops fail. …

Between Athens and Jerusalem: Western otherness in the thought of Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt

In understanding the meaning of the West, twentieth‐century political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss called for a return to “Athens” (classical political philosophy) in order to address the “crisis of the West,” a loss of a sense of legitimate and stable political authority which, in their view, constitutes a nihilistic threat to Western democracy. The only way for the West to escape this nihilistic crisis is to return to Plato and Aristotle. Implicit in this critique is the belief that the other tradition of the West, “Jerusalem” (the Bible) has contributed to this nihilism, by undermining the authority of the Greeks. Is Jerusalem, then, the fatal “Other” for the West? Which tradition—Athens or Jerusalem—is best prepared to alleviate the crisis of the West, especially the survival of democracy? As I address these questions, I shall contend that it is Jerusalem, not Athens, which is the true source of Western democracy.

Founding Platonopolis: The Platonic Politeia in Eusebius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus

This essay begins with an examination of two Neoplatonic biographies, Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras and Iamblichus' On the Pythagorean Life. In contrast to the traditional picture of Neoplatonic disinterest in classical political philosophy, engagement with classical Platonic political philosophy actually forms an important component of these texts. The author then turns to an examination of Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica to argue that Eusebius' extensive comparisons of Moses' legislation with Plato's Laws in Book 12 of the PE should be evaluated in the context of contemporary Neoplatonic political thought. Finally, the essay offers some concluding comments on the timbre such discussions of political philosophy, both Neoplatonic and Eusebian, would have had in the context of the Roman Empire of the early fourth century.

Tyrania - matka polityki

Tyranny is a phenomenon following in the footsteps of politics and contemporary political thought. The aim of this article is an attempt to bring out and – on the basis of Plato’s texts – show the fundamental relationship between tyranny and politeia, which should make a philosopher interested in the foundation of tyranny. The relationship, or better – dependence – is based on the conception that, in my opinion, is fundamental for Platonic philosophy which combines ontological and political investigations that one could call ‘opposition’s transformations’ whose extreme points are the philosopher and the tyrant. They represent two different attitudes towards politics. The article is accompanied by the belief that one cannot practice classical political philosophy, that is a quest for a perfect political system, without incessant dwelling on tyranny. For tyranny is an area where politics comes into being.

Revelation and Reason in Leo Strauss

Revelation and reason are pivotal in Strauss's project. Yet nearly three decades after his death, questions remain about the essential meaning of this core dimension of his project. Scholarship of recent years has tended to approach his project by situating its position in relation to revelation and reason—to one or the other or to both. Among those who hold Strauss in high regard and inclusive of his former students, those often called Straussians, the view is far from clear. Was Strauss's allegiance withreasonalone, that is, with Athens and classical political philosophy? Did his vocation as a political philosopher and his loyalty to the party of Athens preclude his being open torevelation, that is, open to the possibility that the Bible conveys truth regarding the good life? Or was he beyond a dogmatic attachment whether to reason or to revelation?

“Strange Fire at the Altar of the Lord”: Francis Bacon on Human Nature

Francis Bacon's pronouncement that “Man is the Center of the World,” the final cause of all nature, seems to unleash us from all guidance and restraint, providing no grounds for judging any human action to be better or worse than any other. The political implications of such a position—combined with Bacon's efforts to advance technological power—are enormous. There would be little support for natural rights or any other kind of “right” except what is based on force. This famous promoter of scientific power, however, was neither oblivious to the danger, nor politically irresponsible, in his assessment of man's position in the cosmos, and his counsel seems closer to classical political philosophy than is normally acknowledged. This essay provides an examination of and detailed commentary on Bacon's argument, as presented in “Prometheus, or the State of Man.” It reveals that Bacon expects us to deal with the problem in terms of properly ranking humans themselves, discarding the notion that all humans are equal. In light of such a ranking we may come to recognize natural standards for evaluating humans and their actions.

You Can Always Teach

Sometimes a question has been answered in so many creative ways that we overlook the assumptions underlying such responses. When students ask, “What can I do with a degree in literature?” the answers suggest that instructors hear a second, unasked part of the question: “-besides a career in teaching.” That PMLA has reserved space to address a related question-“Why major in literature-what do we tell our students?”-suggests a professional interest not merely in the careers available to literature majors but more broadly in testing what MLA members say about our profession. One answer is that literature majors, like other majors in the liberal arts and humanities, have a wide selection of career choices. The knowledge students gain from modern and classical languages, history, social and political sciences, philosophy, and literature serves graduates by giving them a breadth of experiences and ideas, by developing creative thinking, and by providing skills in communication that make BAs and MAs attractive to employers in business, technology, industry, government, and research, to name a few. But these options omit the one career, sometimes considered a clichéd choice, often left unsaid: literature majors make-or ought to make-excellent teachers.

Leo Strauss's Indictment of Christain Philosophy

Leo Strauss's writings reveal a subtle but consistent set of accusations against the influence of Christian thinkers on political philosophy. These accusations may be summarized in three charges. First, the attempt by Aquinas and other Christian scholastics to synthesize faith and reason led later philosophers to eschew prudence in favor of a humane project to employ science to transform political life. The result was the destruction of themodus vivendi, safeguarded by classical political philosophy, between pious citizens and diffident but inwardly free philosophers. Second, the rationalization of political life implies that a universal regime is possible. But, unless all men become philosophers, this universal regime can be only a universal tyranny, ruled by means of perverted faith in the guise of a final philosophy. Third, Christian thinkers must bear ultimate responsibility for precipitating the early modern rejection of classical political philosophy. Without the Christian appropriation of Aristotle, there might never have been a Machiavelli or a Hobbes.

THE INTELLECTUAL LEGACY OF LEO STRAUSS (1899–1973)

▪ Abstract Leo Strauss revitalized the potential of political philosophy, which had been buried by positivism and historicism. Strauss was both impressed by and dissatisfied with the contemporary criticism of rationalism. Studying the history of political philosophy, he discovered that classical rationalism is not open to the criticism of rationalism because it does not begin by assuming the goodness of philosophy. Classical political philosophy overcomes nihilism not by proving the existence of universal rules of conduct, but by seeing what is highest in man. Modern philosophers departed from the classical approach in an unsuccessful attempt to meet the challenge of revealed religion. This failure led them to engage in a political-scientific project whose ultimate purpose was to refute revealed religion. Although the project failed, it led to the concealment of the most fundamental problems of human beings. The recovery of those problems is Strauss's great legacy.

From Republic to Empire: Political Revolution and the Common Good in Xenophon'sEducation of Cyrus

While recent scholarship has provoked renewed interest in theEducation of Cyrusas an important work for our understanding of the origins of classical political philosophy, it has yet to produce a coherent interpretation that preserves the unity of Xenophon's vision of political life. Following a short review of three recent books on the subject, I argue that the obstacles in the way to such an understanding can be resolved by focusing on the underlying causes in Xenophon's account of the transformation of a republican regime into a universal empire and, in particular, on the various deficiencies and self-contradictions of the republican conception of the common good. I show how an understanding of Xenophon's analysis of virtue within both republican and imperial political orders can lead to a fruitful confrontation with the thought of his most famous student, admirer, and antagonist, Machiavelli.

Les leçons d'une crise sociale ou la rupture d'un consensus (Les grèves de novembre et décembre 1995)

Gerard Prevost, The Lessons of a Social Crisis ou the Rupture of a Consensus (The Strikes of November and December 1995) ; Weberian sociology has eliminated the questions posed by classical political philosophy and has made it difficult to incorporate class analysis into social science. The modernization advocated by recent socialist governments in France provided President Chirac with a watchword justifying a reactionary program : reform . In fact, the disorientation of the social sciences is related to that of the general population. But today the social crisis has reintroduced an essential dimension : the question of the social classes which have Just broken the intellectual consensus.

The Middle Road of Classical Political Philosophy: Socrates' Dialogues with Aristippus in Xenophon's Memorabilia

This article examines the contrast between philosophy and sophism in Xenophon's Memorabilia, focusing chiefly on the two dialogues between Socrates and Aristippus. In two crucial respects, Socrates and the sophist appear as opposites. He accepts what the sophist rejects: the obligations and restraints imposed by the city's laws; and he rejects what the sophist accepts: the vulgar notion that everyone knows what the good things are. In the first dialogue, Socrates defends the self-discipline proper to citizen-soldiers against Aristippus' complete rejection of political responsibility. In the second, he points to the substitution of the beautiful for the good as the proper object of philosophical investigation, hi both dialogues, Socrates walks a middle road: he is more political than the sophist, but less so than the politician. Yet he proves to be close to the politician qua philosopher than he is qua citizen.

Transcendence and Political Philosophy

Classical political philosophy does not claim to be superior to philosophy nor to revelation. Political philosophy is the highest of the practical sciences, itself a unique and legitimate source of specific knowledge that would limit politics to be politics. For the things beyond politics to be free to be confronted in their own nonpolitical order, the polity must itself be constructed in such a way as not to kill its saints or philosophers. Traditionally, theology has been its own science, not the queen of the practical sciences, but the queen of the sciences. This meant that theology, as an articulated statement of revelation, performed a needed check when politics itself became a substitute metaphysics. Since so much theology is itself modeled on the ideologies of modernity, classical political philosophy serves a double purpose, not only to limit the city to its own area, but to restrain those theologies based on modern ideologies. Thus political philosophy serves to allow revelation to be itself.

Seeking the Polity's Bottom Line

Somehow we have lost sight of what ought to be the bottom line for the polity: the condition of the individual Political science, public administration, urban politics, and policy analysis have all lost sight of this concern that was once the focus of classical political philosophy. We must establish systematic inventories of the principal dimensions of the human condition against which we can make comparisons as actors, structures, and processes change.

Augustine, the “Mixed life,” and Classical Political Philosophy

Augustine, the “Mixed life,” and Classical Political Philosophy

Cicero's Focus

T HE QUESTION OF THE BEST POLITICAL ORDER is commonly and properly thought be at very center of inquiry known as political philosophy. Its presence is revealed both in efforts at utopian construction and in searches for incontrovertible, if a priori, principles of justice. That same of best regime can be found close surface and thus capable of arising in ordinary political disputes and discourse among thoughtful citizens. Leo Strauss, in his interpretative work on classical political philosophers, has emphasized citizen perspective as mark of their approach and initial horizon; he has closely connected that perspective of best regime, central or guiding question of classical political philosophy. Strauss wrote that was its direct relation political life which determined orientation and scope of classical political philosophy.' This meant that the primary questions of classical political philosophy and the terms in which it stated them were not specifically philosophic or scientific; rather, were questions that are raised in assemblies, councils, clubs and cabinets, and they were stated in terms intelligible and familiar at least all sane adults, from everyday experience and everyday usage.2 These questions and terms are entailed in actual political controversies; such questions are group should rule, or what compromise would be best solution -that is say, what political order would be best order. Strauss conceded that though concern of actual controversies is the best political order for given political community,... every answer that immediate implies an answer universal of best political order as such, and thus Strauss spoke of the natural tendency of political controversy to express itself in universal terms.3

On a Certain Critique of “Straussianism”

This article examines a certain critique of what I will take the liberty of calling “Straussianism,” a critique which raises questions I believe are worth discussing, especially by all those interested in the work of Leo Strauss. This particular critique appeared in a review of a book on Platonic political philosophy, a review by a young scholar who had published only a couple of articles on classical political philosophy himself.This reviewer aptly characterizes the author as one who, “thoroughly dissatisfied with modern philosophy in all its forms, and unwilling to take refuge in Thomism … turns back to classical philosophy, to the teaching of Plato and Aristotle, as the true teaching” (p. 326). According to this perceptive critic, the author considered the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns “definitely settled in favor of the classics. After having disposed of this fundamental question, which as such is a theoretical question, he can pursue a practical or political intention on the foundation of the classical teaching.”