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Modern European Philosophy
Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem
This book, by one of the most prominent interpreters of Leo Strauss's thought, is the first to examine the theme that Leo Strauss considered to be key to his entire intellectual enterprise. The theologico-political problem refers to the confrontation between the theological and the political alternative to philosophy as a way of life. In this study, Heinrich Meier clarifies the distinction between political theology and political philosophy and sheds new light on the unifying center of Strauss' philosophical work. The book is the culmination of his work on the general topic of the theologico-political problem.
206 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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Heinrich Meier
43 books9 followersHeinrich Meier is professor of philosophy at the universities of Munich and Chicago and heads the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation.
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February 27, 2022
Saving Politics
Most of us take for granted that the Enlightenment of the 18th century created a permanently liberal political culture in which unrestrained thought rather than religious tradition would define the values of society. But the success of political democracy, if success it be, did not resolve either the theoretical or the existential issue of philosophy (as the apotheosis of thought) and theology (as the justification for religious authority). Leo Strauss identified this issue almost exactly a century ago and presciently noted that “The fundamental alternative is that of the rule of philosophy over religion or the rule of religion over philosophy.”
I say presciently because isn’t this alternative being debated now within every major democracy in the world. While pundits like Fukuyama were declaring the End of History after the apparent triumph of democratic capitalism over the quasi-religious Communism of the Soviet Union, what Strauss called the Theologico-political problem simmered in the West, then boiled with talk of the failed ‘Enlightenment Project’, eventually blowing the lid off the stew pot of liberal democracy around the world with the election of decidedly anti-liberal leaders. The re-organised forces of religion are now pushing their theological norms in civil society on every continent.
Part of the reason for the resurrection of Theologico-politics according to Strauss is that religion is purported to be a way of life that philosophy is not. Religion gives certitude about what to believe and how to behave, or failing that, an authority from whom certitude may be achieved. Philosophy is not equipped to respond to such certainty. So it tends to ignore the claims of religion as obviously nonsensical or attempts to reconcile (or to obscure in the name of tolerance) the conflicts between doctrinal Faith and scientific Reason via shallow apologetics.
In addition, the Enlightenment effort to free politics and political thinking from the constraints of religious authority have now, paradoxically, created an ignorance and mistrust of the nature of politics. Meier summarises the progression concisely:
Strauss’s philosophical programme neither ignores religion nor does it minimise the fundamental differences between philosophy and theology. Rather, as Heinrich Meier says, for Strauss, “there is no more powerful objection to the philosophical life imaginable than the objection that appeals to faith in the omnipotent God and to his commandment or law.” Religion, that is to say, the Judaeo-Christian religion (and by implication Islam) must be confronted squarely in its most fundamental claim: the idea of divine revelation.
The study of revelation as a religious topic is called Fundamental Theology. And the theologian who re-invented Fundamental Theology in the 20th century, Karl Barth, was a contemporary of Strauss. Both Barth and another contemporary, the political philosopher Carl Schmitt (who similarly reinvented political theology justifying the Nazi regime), essentially provoked Strauss’s response. As Strauss insisted,
But Strauss’s intention was not to create an alternative religion out of philosophy (this is in fact part of his criticism of modern philosophy). Rather he wants to use philosophy to create and maintain better politics. This is the justification for philosophy, not thought alone but a better way to live together. His critique of Spinoza is that his Ethica did not categorically establish this essentially moral superiority of philosophy over theology. Spinoza had left the possibility of revelation open. In that case, philosophy would be just as much a matter of faith as religion.
Part of Strauss’s answer to the religious challenge is to point out the personal paradox of faith. Faith creates humility before an infinitely external entity, say the theists. But Strauss contends that this is not humility at all but arrogant pride, specifically pride in the certainty of one’s formulaic faith (essentially faith in language). Faith’s mark of distinction is a prideful ignorance, a purposeful self-deception called revelation. Idolatry is inherent in revelation since its necessary formulation in doctrine prevents spiritual progress.
Strauss’s key insight is that religion, has always been a political activity, at least since the time of the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Eastern civilisations, including that of Israel. But the religions of revelation take politics in a new and dangerous direction. Essentially, revealed religion is smug, self-satisfied politics which cannot distinguish between truth and falsity because it has fixed the terms of debate and discussion. Revealed religion is simply bad politics. It creates relationships and behaviours which are inadequate for successful social existence.
I think that another way to express Strauss’s idea is to note that the politics of revealed religion is based on a particular concept of power. In all three ‘religions of the book’, the One Sovereign Authority is the source of all power. Power is distributed to religious and secular leaders by divine will, and then further distributed through ecclesial and civil hierarchies. Religion based on revelation rather than variable myth, communal ritual, or evolving tradition is power politics. The fact that its presumptions justify not only the existing social establishment but also the hierarchical character of the very revelation at its core is an open secret. Even Karl Barth recognised this as a danger to religion itself.
That revealed religion is about power, not justice, love, peace, or human welfare in general is apparent at any level one cares to investigate the matter. Christianity, Islam, and even Judaism have always sought power, certainly over others, but in the first instance over their own members. As an empirical matter, this has always been the case. The Bible screams of the pursuit of power in every page of the Christian as well as Jewish components, as does the Quran. It is certainly debatable whether Moses, Jesus, or the Prophet were power-seekers. But what is incontrovertible is that those who wrote, transcribed, and promulgated their stories were just that.
The downside of religious power politics is that it is obdurately and intentionally blind as well as intolerant. It cannot learn, particularly about itself. The simple multiplicity of contradictory revealed ‘truths’ demonstrates the problem of fake news long before the internet. There is simply no way to “distinguish true faith from frivolous arbitrariness or obstinate self-deception, on the one hand, from mere opinion or simple conjecture, on the other hand, and finally and above all, from the diverse temptations of false belief.”
It is simply not in the political interests of religion to know of competing revelations. Indeed, in the Catholic Church it is a heresy to contend that we need to know anything other than that contained in biblical revelation and their official interpretations in order to either live a moral life or be redeemed at the end of it. The Church claims to be a societas perfecta (a claim more than remarkable in light of the continuing evidence of its institutionalised paedophilia). Most religious adherents, in any case, have no real understanding of the revelations that supposedly bind them together. Instinctively they recognise the essential political nature of their association.
Strauss saw that religion as unconditional belief could not be countered by a philosophy of unconditional belief (or for that matter unconditional unbelief). But such is the trap laid by religion, which claims that ultimately we must be committed to beliefs about the world that we cannot prove (including the rejection of beliefs). So why not a religious revelation rather than a philosophical presumption?
The difference of course is that philosophy has no unconditional beliefs, no firm presumptions. One of the principle activities of philosophy has been the identification of its own inadequate presumptions - in language, in mathematics, in the character of physical and mental reality. Whatever can be thought is potentially its field of operation. The only belief involved is that the field of inquiry is infinite, but even that belief is subject to revision. Philosophy is self-referentially coherent in a way revelation cannot be.
For Strauss this is not just an intellectual conclusion; it is a train of thought which implies a way of life. In this sense it is, not unlike the thought of Spinoza, Jewish in the best sense. Scripture and tradition as a source of questions not answers, the continuous never-ending search for truth, even the feeling of being ‘chosen’ and not quite settled are characteristics of the authentic humility of Spinoza’s as well as Strauss’s philosophy.
This is the opposite of the religious politics of power. Philosophy of the Straussian kind, in Jungian terms, is a politics of Eros rather than Logos. That is, it is a programme for evolving forms of direct human relatedness not a static state of intermediated being. Probity and security do not derive from something outside of humanity. They don’t even originate in philosophical thought, but only from the relations that permit philosophical thought.
This is what I take Strauss to mean by philosophy as a way of life. According to him, philosophy is about saving politics, that is, the relationships we need in order to thrive. The message is as urgent and timely as it was a century ago; or for that matter almost five hundred years ago when Alexander Pope wrote the lines “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man.”
Most of us take for granted that the Enlightenment of the 18th century created a permanently liberal political culture in which unrestrained thought rather than religious tradition would define the values of society. But the success of political democracy, if success it be, did not resolve either the theoretical or the existential issue of philosophy (as the apotheosis of thought) and theology (as the justification for religious authority). Leo Strauss identified this issue almost exactly a century ago and presciently noted that “The fundamental alternative is that of the rule of philosophy over religion or the rule of religion over philosophy.”
I say presciently because isn’t this alternative being debated now within every major democracy in the world. While pundits like Fukuyama were declaring the End of History after the apparent triumph of democratic capitalism over the quasi-religious Communism of the Soviet Union, what Strauss called the Theologico-political problem simmered in the West, then boiled with talk of the failed ‘Enlightenment Project’, eventually blowing the lid off the stew pot of liberal democracy around the world with the election of decidedly anti-liberal leaders. The re-organised forces of religion are now pushing their theological norms in civil society on every continent.
Part of the reason for the resurrection of Theologico-politics according to Strauss is that religion is purported to be a way of life that philosophy is not. Religion gives certitude about what to believe and how to behave, or failing that, an authority from whom certitude may be achieved. Philosophy is not equipped to respond to such certainty. So it tends to ignore the claims of religion as obviously nonsensical or attempts to reconcile (or to obscure in the name of tolerance) the conflicts between doctrinal Faith and scientific Reason via shallow apologetics.
In addition, the Enlightenment effort to free politics and political thinking from the constraints of religious authority have now, paradoxically, created an ignorance and mistrust of the nature of politics. Meier summarises the progression concisely:
“What begins with the emancipation of politics from theology results ultimately, after the successful unleashing of a world of increasing purposive rationality and growing prosperity, in a state of incomprehension of and indifference towards the original sense of the theologico-political critique, a state in which the demands of politics are rejected with the same matter-of-factness as those of religion.”Whether democratic politics have deteriorated, or their unsavouriness has simply become more visible, the widespread political disillusion and ennui is apparent. This is the opening, once again, for religion to reassert its claims amid the resulting turmoil.
Strauss’s philosophical programme neither ignores religion nor does it minimise the fundamental differences between philosophy and theology. Rather, as Heinrich Meier says, for Strauss, “there is no more powerful objection to the philosophical life imaginable than the objection that appeals to faith in the omnipotent God and to his commandment or law.” Religion, that is to say, the Judaeo-Christian religion (and by implication Islam) must be confronted squarely in its most fundamental claim: the idea of divine revelation.
The study of revelation as a religious topic is called Fundamental Theology. And the theologian who re-invented Fundamental Theology in the 20th century, Karl Barth, was a contemporary of Strauss. Both Barth and another contemporary, the political philosopher Carl Schmitt (who similarly reinvented political theology justifying the Nazi regime), essentially provoked Strauss’s response. As Strauss insisted,
“Only through the Bible is philosophy, or the quest for knowledge, challenged by knowledge, viz. by knowledge revealed by the omniscient God, or by knowledge identical with the self-communication of God. No alternative is more fundamental than the alternative: human guidance or divine guidance. Tertium non datur”[there is no third way].
But Strauss’s intention was not to create an alternative religion out of philosophy (this is in fact part of his criticism of modern philosophy). Rather he wants to use philosophy to create and maintain better politics. This is the justification for philosophy, not thought alone but a better way to live together. His critique of Spinoza is that his Ethica did not categorically establish this essentially moral superiority of philosophy over theology. Spinoza had left the possibility of revelation open. In that case, philosophy would be just as much a matter of faith as religion.
Part of Strauss’s answer to the religious challenge is to point out the personal paradox of faith. Faith creates humility before an infinitely external entity, say the theists. But Strauss contends that this is not humility at all but arrogant pride, specifically pride in the certainty of one’s formulaic faith (essentially faith in language). Faith’s mark of distinction is a prideful ignorance, a purposeful self-deception called revelation. Idolatry is inherent in revelation since its necessary formulation in doctrine prevents spiritual progress.
Strauss’s key insight is that religion, has always been a political activity, at least since the time of the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Eastern civilisations, including that of Israel. But the religions of revelation take politics in a new and dangerous direction. Essentially, revealed religion is smug, self-satisfied politics which cannot distinguish between truth and falsity because it has fixed the terms of debate and discussion. Revealed religion is simply bad politics. It creates relationships and behaviours which are inadequate for successful social existence.
I think that another way to express Strauss’s idea is to note that the politics of revealed religion is based on a particular concept of power. In all three ‘religions of the book’, the One Sovereign Authority is the source of all power. Power is distributed to religious and secular leaders by divine will, and then further distributed through ecclesial and civil hierarchies. Religion based on revelation rather than variable myth, communal ritual, or evolving tradition is power politics. The fact that its presumptions justify not only the existing social establishment but also the hierarchical character of the very revelation at its core is an open secret. Even Karl Barth recognised this as a danger to religion itself.
That revealed religion is about power, not justice, love, peace, or human welfare in general is apparent at any level one cares to investigate the matter. Christianity, Islam, and even Judaism have always sought power, certainly over others, but in the first instance over their own members. As an empirical matter, this has always been the case. The Bible screams of the pursuit of power in every page of the Christian as well as Jewish components, as does the Quran. It is certainly debatable whether Moses, Jesus, or the Prophet were power-seekers. But what is incontrovertible is that those who wrote, transcribed, and promulgated their stories were just that.
The downside of religious power politics is that it is obdurately and intentionally blind as well as intolerant. It cannot learn, particularly about itself. The simple multiplicity of contradictory revealed ‘truths’ demonstrates the problem of fake news long before the internet. There is simply no way to “distinguish true faith from frivolous arbitrariness or obstinate self-deception, on the one hand, from mere opinion or simple conjecture, on the other hand, and finally and above all, from the diverse temptations of false belief.”
It is simply not in the political interests of religion to know of competing revelations. Indeed, in the Catholic Church it is a heresy to contend that we need to know anything other than that contained in biblical revelation and their official interpretations in order to either live a moral life or be redeemed at the end of it. The Church claims to be a societas perfecta (a claim more than remarkable in light of the continuing evidence of its institutionalised paedophilia). Most religious adherents, in any case, have no real understanding of the revelations that supposedly bind them together. Instinctively they recognise the essential political nature of their association.
Strauss saw that religion as unconditional belief could not be countered by a philosophy of unconditional belief (or for that matter unconditional unbelief). But such is the trap laid by religion, which claims that ultimately we must be committed to beliefs about the world that we cannot prove (including the rejection of beliefs). So why not a religious revelation rather than a philosophical presumption?
The difference of course is that philosophy has no unconditional beliefs, no firm presumptions. One of the principle activities of philosophy has been the identification of its own inadequate presumptions - in language, in mathematics, in the character of physical and mental reality. Whatever can be thought is potentially its field of operation. The only belief involved is that the field of inquiry is infinite, but even that belief is subject to revision. Philosophy is self-referentially coherent in a way revelation cannot be.
For Strauss this is not just an intellectual conclusion; it is a train of thought which implies a way of life. In this sense it is, not unlike the thought of Spinoza, Jewish in the best sense. Scripture and tradition as a source of questions not answers, the continuous never-ending search for truth, even the feeling of being ‘chosen’ and not quite settled are characteristics of the authentic humility of Spinoza’s as well as Strauss’s philosophy.
This is the opposite of the religious politics of power. Philosophy of the Straussian kind, in Jungian terms, is a politics of Eros rather than Logos. That is, it is a programme for evolving forms of direct human relatedness not a static state of intermediated being. Probity and security do not derive from something outside of humanity. They don’t even originate in philosophical thought, but only from the relations that permit philosophical thought.
This is what I take Strauss to mean by philosophy as a way of life. According to him, philosophy is about saving politics, that is, the relationships we need in order to thrive. The message is as urgent and timely as it was a century ago; or for that matter almost five hundred years ago when Alexander Pope wrote the lines “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man.”
May 26, 2011
Full disclosure: I have a degree from the committee on social thought at the university of chicago, where Meier and a bunch of other Straussians teach. One of the offices in the building there is a Leo Strauss research center. I basically lived and thought in the eye of the Straussian storm for 7 years. That said, I never really understood what all the fuss, positive or negative, was about. Not because of any conspiracy to keep me from knowing the Great Secret or anything; I just didn't take the time to find out.
And so this book was great for me, and I imagine would be great for anyone who knows about Straussian themes and various controversies and maybe really enjoyed by reading Miles Burnyeat's old articles tearing apart various Straussian interpretations of Plato and other ancient thinkers. If you were really sad about those articles, I don't know how much in here will be news to you.
Anyway, Meier's claim is that the best way to understand Strauss's life work is to see him as responding to a supposed clash between revelation and reason. The philosopher needs to rationally justify the philosophical way of life against those who reject it; he needs to take part in politics in order to defend the philosophical way of life; and he aims to come to self-knowledge through the undertaking of philosophy. This self-knowledge will include knowledge of the 'cosmos,' which, as far as I can tell, means human nature.
But if you're going to understand human nature, you'll have to cut through all the awful stuff that says there's no such thing: historicism, relativism, positivism and so on. Hence, you need to read through the history of philosophy in order to see that our own historicist self-understanding is itself a forgetting of the key question about human nature. By reading the ancients, and coming to see that their concerns are identical (!!!) with ours, we can see that philosophy is asking the one question that we should all be asking: what is right?, in a rational manner.
Anyway, historicism is not a fact, but a flawed understanding of human life, according to which there are multiple main questions that vary through time. Why would we end up as historicists? Because the moderns, as good philosophers, tried to make philosophy 'safe' from political oppression. But they did this by putting it at the service of 'society': philosophy becomes useful, and specialized, and 'scientific'- not really philosophy at all. Sad face.
The true alternative to philosophy isn't historicism, anyway, but religion. Religion claims to ask the one important question, but it claims that the answer has been revealed to it rather than saying we need to work on it rationally. So philosophy is always set against revelation. In the worst case scenario, politics and theology gang up on philosophy, and then the philosophers are all made to drink hemlock. This is because while theology and politics are all about stability and unquestioning habit, philosophy is all about criticizing the way the world is. Philosophy is dangerous for political stability, which is why They killed Socrates (and, I assume, Cicero and Seneca and put Abelard in prison and so on). Hence philosophy's need to protect itself politically, which, you'll recall, led to philosophy becoming useful.
So Meier helped me to understand all that. His prose is stilted, but then, he's German, so you have to expect little. But his prose is clear. As a textbook of Strauss, I give this 5 stars. I can't give it 5 stars because the object of the textbook is so obviously flawed:
i) Strauss rightly seeks to historicize historicism, but fails to historicize himself. Why is it that *he*, of all people, is able to see through, if you'll forgive a mixed metaphor, the forgetting of the question of philosophy? No reason seems forthcoming, at least according to Meier's book and the lectures by Strauss that follow it.
ii) The argument that there is One Great Question is based on an ingenious but particularly flimsy claim: that Strauss' readings of the great philosophers show us that they and we are concerned with the same question. Know, then, that everyone from Aristotle to the very latest author to appear in The Journal of Ancient Philosophy has a different interpretation of those great philosophers, not only from Strauss, but from each other. So if there is One Great Question, it sure as heck appears in a whole bunch of different outfits. There's no reason to believe Strauss' interpretation really is one that results in us 'understanding the author as he understood himself.'
iii) The claim that, because historicism is a modern way of thinking, it isn't a genuine insight, holds no water whatsoever. This for a couple of reasons at least. First, and most obviously, because Christian philosophies of history have been historicizing forever, so it's certainly not a peculiarly modernist way of thinking anyway. Second, because Strauss ignores the good historicists and focuses on the idiots: he assumes, along with said idiots (not that he is one), that if x is historically specific, x is relativistic. There's no reason to assume that. The Frankfurt school, following Hegel, does a good job of arguing just the opposite: that a custom can be historically specific while still being, for all intents and purposes, an absolute moral duty. As someone puts it, it's not that the truth is in history; it's that history is in the truth. So we needn't attack historicism in order to defend the ideal of truth. It's much more likely that the ideal of the truth can only be defended on the basis of historicism.
iv) Strauss is meant to be a rationalist, but he ignores the main achievements of reason. For instance, we know that humans have evolved from apes. If that's true, how can there be some sort of 'human nature'? Are we, among all animals, unique in no longer evolving? It seems unlikely. All the evidence is against there being a human nature at all. Given this, it makes more sense to stop philosophising about what we necessarily are, and to start thinking seriously about what we would like to be, and how best to become that.
In short, I appreciate his aims, accept that he shouldn't be considered a cult-leader, but really think what he wanted to do (say, get us to focus on what sort of life we want to lead) is better done by other Germans.
And so this book was great for me, and I imagine would be great for anyone who knows about Straussian themes and various controversies and maybe really enjoyed by reading Miles Burnyeat's old articles tearing apart various Straussian interpretations of Plato and other ancient thinkers. If you were really sad about those articles, I don't know how much in here will be news to you.
Anyway, Meier's claim is that the best way to understand Strauss's life work is to see him as responding to a supposed clash between revelation and reason. The philosopher needs to rationally justify the philosophical way of life against those who reject it; he needs to take part in politics in order to defend the philosophical way of life; and he aims to come to self-knowledge through the undertaking of philosophy. This self-knowledge will include knowledge of the 'cosmos,' which, as far as I can tell, means human nature.
But if you're going to understand human nature, you'll have to cut through all the awful stuff that says there's no such thing: historicism, relativism, positivism and so on. Hence, you need to read through the history of philosophy in order to see that our own historicist self-understanding is itself a forgetting of the key question about human nature. By reading the ancients, and coming to see that their concerns are identical (!!!) with ours, we can see that philosophy is asking the one question that we should all be asking: what is right?, in a rational manner.
Anyway, historicism is not a fact, but a flawed understanding of human life, according to which there are multiple main questions that vary through time. Why would we end up as historicists? Because the moderns, as good philosophers, tried to make philosophy 'safe' from political oppression. But they did this by putting it at the service of 'society': philosophy becomes useful, and specialized, and 'scientific'- not really philosophy at all. Sad face.
The true alternative to philosophy isn't historicism, anyway, but religion. Religion claims to ask the one important question, but it claims that the answer has been revealed to it rather than saying we need to work on it rationally. So philosophy is always set against revelation. In the worst case scenario, politics and theology gang up on philosophy, and then the philosophers are all made to drink hemlock. This is because while theology and politics are all about stability and unquestioning habit, philosophy is all about criticizing the way the world is. Philosophy is dangerous for political stability, which is why They killed Socrates (and, I assume, Cicero and Seneca and put Abelard in prison and so on). Hence philosophy's need to protect itself politically, which, you'll recall, led to philosophy becoming useful.
So Meier helped me to understand all that. His prose is stilted, but then, he's German, so you have to expect little. But his prose is clear. As a textbook of Strauss, I give this 5 stars. I can't give it 5 stars because the object of the textbook is so obviously flawed:
i) Strauss rightly seeks to historicize historicism, but fails to historicize himself. Why is it that *he*, of all people, is able to see through, if you'll forgive a mixed metaphor, the forgetting of the question of philosophy? No reason seems forthcoming, at least according to Meier's book and the lectures by Strauss that follow it.
ii) The argument that there is One Great Question is based on an ingenious but particularly flimsy claim: that Strauss' readings of the great philosophers show us that they and we are concerned with the same question. Know, then, that everyone from Aristotle to the very latest author to appear in The Journal of Ancient Philosophy has a different interpretation of those great philosophers, not only from Strauss, but from each other. So if there is One Great Question, it sure as heck appears in a whole bunch of different outfits. There's no reason to believe Strauss' interpretation really is one that results in us 'understanding the author as he understood himself.'
iii) The claim that, because historicism is a modern way of thinking, it isn't a genuine insight, holds no water whatsoever. This for a couple of reasons at least. First, and most obviously, because Christian philosophies of history have been historicizing forever, so it's certainly not a peculiarly modernist way of thinking anyway. Second, because Strauss ignores the good historicists and focuses on the idiots: he assumes, along with said idiots (not that he is one), that if x is historically specific, x is relativistic. There's no reason to assume that. The Frankfurt school, following Hegel, does a good job of arguing just the opposite: that a custom can be historically specific while still being, for all intents and purposes, an absolute moral duty. As someone puts it, it's not that the truth is in history; it's that history is in the truth. So we needn't attack historicism in order to defend the ideal of truth. It's much more likely that the ideal of the truth can only be defended on the basis of historicism.
iv) Strauss is meant to be a rationalist, but he ignores the main achievements of reason. For instance, we know that humans have evolved from apes. If that's true, how can there be some sort of 'human nature'? Are we, among all animals, unique in no longer evolving? It seems unlikely. All the evidence is against there being a human nature at all. Given this, it makes more sense to stop philosophising about what we necessarily are, and to start thinking seriously about what we would like to be, and how best to become that.
In short, I appreciate his aims, accept that he shouldn't be considered a cult-leader, but really think what he wanted to do (say, get us to focus on what sort of life we want to lead) is better done by other Germans.
May 2, 2008
I have yet to come across a more thoroughgoing, reasonable, fair, and profound treatment of Strauss' intention as a thinker and founder of a school of thought. Whether treating of his relation to the neo-cons, or of the scope, manner, and mode of his philosophizing, Meier elucidates Strauss' political philosophy in such a manner that the individuality and "originality" of Strauss can be seen as nothing more than a wonderfuly lucky gift to those who can benefit from his work for the sake of going beyond both their historical horizons and that which is merely "Straussian."
Best of all, though, are the previously unpublished lectures given by Strauss at the end of Meier's book. Reason and Revelation, at least for me, is enormously helpful for working out the conflict between the two insofar as Strauss therein silently provides exceedingly useful escape routes.
Best of all, though, are the previously unpublished lectures given by Strauss at the end of Meier's book. Reason and Revelation, at least for me, is enormously helpful for working out the conflict between the two insofar as Strauss therein silently provides exceedingly useful escape routes.
June 7, 2015
A fine review of this fine and very much needed book has been written by Laurence Lampert. The review is: "Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem." Canadian Journal of Political Science. 40/2 (2007): 551-552. I highly recommend it. If you are unable to obtain a copy of it, let me know and I may be able to send you one. Though short in length, it is certainly worth reading. It is the best review out of those of which I am presently aware (though it focuses on only one part of Meier's book). Specifically, Lampert's review, after indicating the success with which Meier's book ends the debate on just where Strauss stood on the "relative merits of philosophy and revelation," it goes on to point to what Lampert calls "another, better debate." That now opened debate is the question of whether Strauss, the "rational master of other philosophers’ timely strategy," who "thought it wise, in his time, to act as if the debate between philosophy and revelation could be a stalemate with neither able to refute the other" was himself acting wise in doing so. And that is a fine debate, indeed, a debate for which we can be grateful to Meier for so indispensably helping us to begin.
June 16, 2022
Best introduction to Leo Strauss I've read.
July 23, 2022
The translation was a bit difficult at points, but overall a very solid reflection on Strauss’ thought.
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June 1, 2012I don't object to academic books having titles that could also be Encyclopedia Brown or Hardy Boys titles.
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June 7, 2009In 1940 Strauss grasped the philosophical scene beyond anything I'd thought previously.
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