The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss

The volume provides a comprehensive and non-partisan survey of the major themes and problems that constituted Strauss's work.

Steven B. Smith (Edited by)

9780521703994, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 May 2009

326 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.45 kg

"This collection of essays is learned, well argued, intelligent, and written by fine scholars from departments of philosophy and political science who are clearly independent thinkers...For those who are interested in Strauss's critique of modernity, or the nature of his debt to Heidegger, or his Spinozistic tendencies, this volume offers a very good place to start, especially for insiders."
Perspectives on Politics, John R. Wallach, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

Leo Strauss was a central figure in the twentieth century renaissance of political philosophy. The essays of The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss provide a comprehensive and non-partisan survey of the major themes and problems that constituted Strauss's work. These include his revival of the great 'quarrel between the ancients and the moderns,' his examination of tension between Jerusalem and Athens, and most controversially his recovery of the tradition of esoteric writing. The volume also examines Strauss's complex relation to a range of contemporary political movements and thinkers, including Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Gershom Scholem, as well as the creation of a distinctive school of 'Straussian' political philosophy.

1. Introduction: Leo Strauss today Steven B. Smith
2. Leo Strauss: the outlines of a life Steven B. Smith
3. Leo Strauss and the theologico-political predicament Leora Batnitsky
4. Strauss's recovery of esotericism Laurence Lampert
5. Strauss's return to pre-modern thought Catherine Zuckert
6. Leo Strauss and the problem of the modern Stanley Rosen
7. The medieval Arabic enlightenment Joel Kraemer
8. 'To spare the vanquished and crush the arrogant': Leo Strauss's lecture on 'German nihilism' Susan Shell
9. Leo Strauss's qualified embrace of liberal democracy William A. Galston
10. Strauss and social science Nasser Behnegar
11. The complementarity of political philosophy and liberal education in the thought of Leo Strauss Timothy Fuller
12. Straussians Michael Zuckert.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], Religion: general [HRA], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Philosophy [HP]