Leo Strauss: An Introduction

226 Pages·2021·2.012 MB·English

by  Neil G. Robertson

Leo Strauss
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Key Contemporary Thinkers Series includes:
Jeremy Ahearne, Michel de Certeau
Lee Braver, Heidegger
John Burgess, Kripke
Claire Colebrook, Agamben
Jean-Pierre Couture, Sloterdijk
Colin Davis, Levinas
Oliver Davis, Jacques Rancière
Reidar Andreas Due, Deleuze
Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir
Nigel Gibson, Fanon
Graeme Gilloch, Siegfried Kracauer
Lawrence Hamilton, Amartya Sen
M. G. Hayes, John Maynard Keynes
Christina Howells, Derrida
Simon Jarvis, Adorno
Rachel Jones, Irigaray
Sarah Kay, Žižek
S. K. Keltner, Kristeva
Matthew H. Kramer, H.L.A. Hart
Moya Lloyd, Judith Butler
James McGilvray, Chomsky, 2nd edn
Lois McNay, Foucault
Marie-Eve Morin, Jean-Luc Nancy
Timothy Murphy, Antonio Negri
Daniel H. Neilson, Minsky
Ed Pluth, Badiou
John Preston, Feyerabend
Reiland Rabaka, Du Bois
J. Toby Reiner, Michael Walzer
Neil G. Robertson, Leo Strauss
Severin Schroeder, Wittgenstein
Susan Sellers, Hélène Cixous
Anthony Paul Smith, Laruelle
Dennis Smith, Zygmunt Bauman
James Smith, Terry Eagleton
James Williams, Lyotard
Christopher Zurn, Axel Honneth
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Leo Strauss
An Introduction
Neil G. Robertson
polity
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Copyright © Neil G. Robertson 2021
The right of Neil G. Robertson to be identified as Author of this Work has been
asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1630-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1631-5 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Robertson, Neil G., author.
Title: Leo Strauss : an introduction / Neil Robertson.
Description: Medford : Polity Press, 2021. | Series: Key contemporary
thinkers | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A
non-partisan introduction to the ideas of the controversial political
philosopher and classicist”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020053826 (print) | LCCN 2020053827 (ebook) | ISBN
9781509516308 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509516315 (paperback) | ISBN
9781509516322 (pdf) | ISBN 9781509516346 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Strauss, Leo--Political and social views. | Political
science--Philosophy. | Political science--History.
Classification: LCC JA71 .R5853 2021 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) | DDC
320.092--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053826
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053827
Typeset in 10.5 on 12pt Palatino
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL
Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd
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subsequent reprint or edition.
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In memory of my parents, Ronald and Sheila Robertson
for their sustaining love and understated wisdom
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations of Works by Strauss xi
Introduction 1
1 Recovering Natural Right in the Weimar Republic 16
2 The Theological-Political Problem 45
3 Esoteric Writing and Political Philosophy 73
4 Recovering Classical Political Philosophy 100
5 The Critique of Modernity 139
6 Strauss, the Straussians, and America 171
Conclusion 195
Further Reading 199
Works Cited 201
Index 206
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Acknowledgments
This book is a culmination of the fascination with and critical
admiration for the thought of Leo Strauss that I have had since
first encountering him when I was an undergraduate, through
the teaching of George Grant and of Robert Eden when both were
at Dalhousie University. I have thought and taught and written
about Leo Strauss for nearly forty years. I am so grateful for the
teachers, colleagues, and students who have supported in so many
ways my effort to understand this most evasive of thinkers. I
must especially acknowledge two intersecting intellectual centers:
the University of King’s College and the Classics Department of
Dalhousie University, together so fundamental to my intellectual
formation, and the home for my thinking about Strauss.
There are specific colleagues and friends who have contributed
directly to this book’s composition by reading drafts of chapters
and aiding and correcting my thinking and understanding of
Strauss: Daniel Brandes, Eli Diamond, Susan Dodd, Mark Henrie,
Ken Kierans, Simon Kow, David Peddle, and Henry Roper. I am
also very much in the debt of the anonymous reviewers who
gave such helpful corrections and suggestions to aid in the final
reworking of the book. I am deeply grateful to George Owers and
Julia Davies of Polity Press for the invitation to write this book and
the care and consideration they have shown both it and me over its
somewhat delayed emergence.
This book was made possible by six months’ leave of absence
from my work as Director of the Foundation Year Program at
the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For the
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