Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought: Reading Strauss Outside the Lines

Description

Broadens the horizons of Strauss's thought by initiating dialogues between him and figures with whom little or no dialogue has yet occurred. 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. Jeffrey A. Bernstein is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross and the author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History, also published by SUNY Press. Jade Larissa Schiff is Assistant Professor of Politics at Oberlin College and the author of Burdens of Political Responsibility: Narrative and the Cultivation of Responsiveness. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Notes I. Arts of Reading and Seeing 1 Liberalism and the Question: Strauss and Derrida on Politics and Philosophy Politics and Philosophy: Concealment or Repression? Convergences: The Activity of Philosophy and the Trace of the Author Conclusion Notes 2 Purloined Letters—Lacan avec Strauss Perry Mason and Poe: The Effects of Truth on Desire The Arts of Writing and Their Vicissitudes The Ancient and the Modern Progress or Return? Notes 3 Seeing through Law: Phenomenological Thought in Soloveitchik and Strauss Introductory Remarks The Path to Law Law and Its Phenomena Concluding Remarks Notes 4 Claude Lefort and Leo Strauss: On A Philosophical Discourse Lefort’s Critique of the “Teaching” Beginning an Interpretation Contradictions in the Discourse Dissimulating and Disclosing Classical Teaching and Novelty The Interpreter and the Discourse of the Work Founding and Origin in the Oeuvre Concluding Remarks The Art of Reading and Writing in Leo Strauss’s Thoughts on Machiavelli Teaching and Thought The Art of Reading and Writing The Consequences of a Teaching Final Remarks The Interpreter and the Work Notes II. History and Politics 5 A Civil Encounter: Leo Strauss and Charles Taylor on Religious Pluralism Material Histories Political Scientist, Philosophers of Politics, Historians of Political Philosophy On Democracy—the Educated, the Bad, and the Ugly Religion and Tolerance The Stability of the Rule and the Flexibility of the Ruled Notes 6 Care of the Self and the Invention of Legitimate Government: Foucault and Strauss on Platonic Political Philosophy On Reading Foucault with Strauss: Some Preliminary Remarks The First Platonic Reversal: Good Politics as Critique of Democracy The Second Platonic Reversal: Ethics and Ontology as Governmental Apparatus Conclusion Notes 7 A Fruitful Disagreement: The Philosophical Encounter between George P. Grant and Leo Strauss Kojève’s Hegel and Grant’s Strauss The Protestant Primal The Call from That Darkness Conclusion Notes 8 Strauss and Blumenberg on the Caves of the Moderns The Idea of a Second Cave The Naturalness of the Cave History as a Way Out of the Cave Secularization or Self-assertion Notes 9 Writing the Querelle des Anciens et Modernes: Leo Strauss and Ferdinand Tönnies on Hobbes and the Sociology of Philosophy Introduction Tönnies on Hobbes, 1879–1981 Strauss on Hobbes, 1954 Strauss on Modern Natural Right (and Hobbes), 1953 Tönnies on the Spirit of Modernity (and Hobbes), 1935 Sociology of Philosophy Notes III. Culture and Critique 10 Leo Strauss and Jürgen Habermas: The Quest for Reason in Twentieth-Century Lifeworlds I II III IV V VI Notes 11 Heidegger’s Challenge to the Renaissance of Socratic Political Rationalism Early Heidegger: from Theory to Existenz Articulation in Being and Time What Is Nihilism? Strauss on the Comic Dimension of Philosophic Speech and Inquiry Conclusion Notes 12 The Wheel of History: Nihilism as Moral Protest and Destruction of the Present in Leo Strauss and Albert Camus Notes 13 Who’s Laughing? Leo Strauss on Comedy and Mockery Two Versions of Socrates: Strauss on Aristophanes and Humor Reading Aristophanes—Reading Socrates Modernity and Mockery: Strauss on the Enlightenment, Spinoza, and Modern Jewish Philosophy Nietzsche and the Problem of Jewish Philosophy’s “New Thinking” The Hidden Distinction: On Nietzsche and Laughter Conclusion: Maimonides, Extreme Humility, and Comical Stupidity Notes 14 Leo Strauss and Walter Benjamin: Thinking “In a Moment of Danger” Introduction Benjamin and Strauss: Contours of a Nondialogue Aesthetics and Politics or Philosophy and Law? Benjamin and Strauss on Theology, Politics, and Culture Notes About the Contributors Index