Leo Strauss on political philosophy : responding to the challenge of positivism and historicism / edited and with an introduction by Catherine H. Zuckert ; with assistance from Les Harris and Philip Bretton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Strauss, Leo, author.

Contributor:

Zuckert, Catherine H., 1942- editor, writer of introduction.

Harris, Les (Editor), editor.

Bretton, Philip, editor.

Series:

Leo Strauss transcript series.

Leo Strauss Transcript Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political science--Philosophy.

Political science.

Political science--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (271 pages).

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois ; London, England : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Summary:

Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy through careful analyses of works by ancient thinkers. As with his published writings, Strauss’s seminars devoted to specific philosophers were notoriously dense, accessible only to graduate students and scholars with a good command of the subject. In 1965, however, Strauss offered an introductory course on political philosophy at the University of Chicago. Using a conversational style, he sought to make political philosophy, as well as his own ideas and methods, understandable to those with little background on the subject. Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy brings together the lectures that comprise Strauss’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy.” Strauss begins by emphasizing the importance of political philosophy in determining the common good of society and critically examining the two most powerful contemporary challenges to the possibility of using political theory to learn about and develop the best political order: positivism and historicism. In seeking the common good, classical political philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did not distinguish between political philosophy and political science. Today, however, political philosophy must contend with the contemporary belief that it is impossible to know what the good society really is. Strauss emphasizes the need to study the history of political philosophy to see whether the changes in the understanding of nature and conceptions of justice that gradually led people to believe that it is not possible to determine what the best political society is are either necessary or valid. In doing so, he ranges across the entire history of political philosophy, providing a valuable, thematically coherent foundation, including explications of many canonical thinkers, such as Auguste Comte and Immanuel Kant, about whom Strauss did not write extensively in his published writings.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Note on the Leo Strauss Transcript Project

Editor’s Introduction

Editorial Headnote

I The Obstacles to the Study of Political Philosophy Today

A. Positivism

1 Comte as the Founder of Positivism:

2 Comte’s Positive Political Philosophy

3 Positivism after Comte:

4 Value- Free Social Science:

5 Strauss’s Responses to Contemporary Defenses of the Fact- Value Distinction

B. Historicism

6 Historicism as the More Serious Challenge to Political Philosophy

7 R. G. Collingwood as an Example

II Why Studying the History of Political Philosophy Is Necessary Today

8 On the Difference between the Ancients and the Moderns

III The Origins of Political Philosophy

9 Physis and Nomos

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226566962

022656696X

OCLC:

1046977527