Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Continental Philosophy, Platonism, Conservatism
Main interests	Metaphysics, Epistemology, Greek philosophy, History of philosophy, Philosophy of religion, Political philosophy, Nihilism, Continental philosophy, Politics
Notable ideas	Esotericism

Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973), was a German-born Jewish-American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of devoted students and published fifteen books. Since his death, he has come to be regarded as an intellectual source of neoconservatism in the United States.

Biography

Leo Strauss was born in the small town of Kirchhain, Hessen, Germany, on September 20, 1899, to Hugo and Jennie Strauss née David. According to Allan Bloom's 1974 obituary in Political Theory, Strauss "was raised as an Orthodox Jew", but in fact the family’s relationship to Orthodox practice was not completely faithful, and may be categorized as Conservative in light of the German language study Mittelhessen- eine Heimat für Juden? Das Schicksal der Familie Strauss aus Kirchhain (Joachim Lüders and Ariane Wehner,Central Hessen- A Homeland for Jews? The Fate of the Strauss Family from Kirchhain [1989]).

In "A Giving of Accounts", published in The College 22(1) and later reprinted in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, Strauss noted he had come from a "conservative, even orthodox Jewish home", but one in which there was little Jewish knowledge beyond a strict adherence to ceremonial laws. His father and uncle operated a farming supply and livestock business that they inherited from their father, Meyer (1835-1919), a prominent and outspoken leader of the Jewish community. Leo Strauss would dedicate his second book to his father.

After attending the Kirchhain Volksschule and the private, Protestant Rektoratsschule, Leo Strauss was enrolled at the famous Gymnasium Philippinum (affiliated with the University of Marburg) in nearby Marburg (from which Johannes Althusius and Carl J. Friedrich also graduated) in 1912, graduating in 1917. During that time, he boarded with the Marburg Cantor Strauss (no relation); the Cantor's residence served as a meeting place for followers of the neo-Kantian philosopher, Hermann Cohen. Strauss served in the German army during World War I from July 5, 1917 to December 1918.

Strauss subsequently enrolled in the University of Hamburg, where he received his doctorate in 1921, his thesis "On the Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophical Doctrine of F. H. Jacobi" supervised by Ernst Cassirer. He also attended courses at the Universities of Freiburg and Marburg, including some by Edmund Husserl and his pupil Martin Heidegger. Strauss's closest friend was Jacob Klein but he also was friendly and intellectually engaged with Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Julius Guttman, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Franz Rosenzweig (to whom Strauss dedicated his first book), Gershom Scholem, Alexander Altmann, and the great Arabist Paul Kraus, who married Strauss's sister Bettina (Strauss and his wife later adopted their child, when both parents perished in the Middle East). With several of these old friends, Strauss carried on vigorous epistolary exchanges later in life; many of these letters are now being published in the Gesammelte Schriften as well as elsewhere, some in translation from the German. Strauss had also been engaged in an important discourse with Carl Schmitt, who was instrumental in Strauss' receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship; when Strauss left Germany, he reportedly ceased communication with Schmitt and failed to reply to his overtures.

After receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1932, Strauss left his position at the Academy of Jewish Research in Berlin for Paris. He returned to Germany only once, for a few short days 20 years later. In Paris he married Marie (Miriam) Bernsohn, a widow with a young child whom he had known previously in Germany. He adopted his wife's son and never had a biological child of his own. At his death he was survived by his son Thomas, his daughter Jenny Strauss Clay - the child born to his late sister - and three grandchildren. Strauss became a lifelong friend of Alexandre Kojeve, and was on friendly terms with Raymond Aron, Alexandre Koyre, and Etienne Gilson. Because of the Nazi rise to power, he refused to return to his native country. Strauss found shelter, after some vicissitudes, in England, where in 1935 he gained temporary employment at University of Cambridge. While in England, he became a close friend of R. H. Tawney.

The University of Chicago, the school with which Strauss is most closely associated.

Unable to find permanent employment in England, Strauss moved in 1937 to the United States, under the patronage of Harold Laski, who generously bestowed upon Strauss a brief lectureship. After a short and precarious stint as Research Fellow in the Department of History at Columbia University, Strauss secured a tenuous position at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where, between 1938 and 1948, he eked out a hand-to-mouth living on the political science faculty. He became a US citizen in 1944, and in 1949 he became a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and received for the first time in his life a decent living wage. Strauss held the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professorship there until 1969 when he moved to Claremont McKenna College (formerly Claremont Men's College), in California for a year, and then to St. John's College, Annapolis in 1970, where he was the Scott Buchanan Distinguished Scholar in Residence until his death in 1973.

Philosophy

For Strauss, politics and philosophy were necessarily intertwined at their roots. He regarded the trial and death of Socrates as the moment in which political philosophy (as understood by Strauss) came to light. Until Socrates' life and death in Athens, philosophers were relatively free to pursue the study of nature and politics. Strauss mentions in The City and Man that Aristotle traces the first philosopher concerned with politics to have been a city planner many generations before Socrates. Yet Socrates was not a political philosopher in the modern sense, according to Stanley Rosen in Plato's Republic. Socrates did not study political phenomena philosophically; rather, Socrates was the first philosopher forced by the polis to treat philosophy politically: "According to the traditional view, the Athenian Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the founder of political philosophy" (Strauss and Cropsey 1).Thus, Strauss considered one of the most important moments in the history of philosophy to be the argument by Socrates and his students that philosophers or scientists could not study nature without considering their own human nature, which, in the famous phrase of Aristotle, is "political." The trial of Socrates was the first act of "political" philosophy, and Plato’s dialogues were the purest form of the political treatment of philosophy, their sole comprehensive theme being the life and death of Socrates, the philosopher par excellence for Strauss and many of his students.

Strauss carefully distinguished "scholars" from "philosophers", identifying himself as a scholar. He wrote that today most self-described philosophers are in actuality scholars, cautious and methodical rather than bold. He contended that great thinkers are bold but wary of pitfalls, whereas scholars benefit from sure ground. Strauss concluded that scholars exist because great thinkers disagree on fundamental points, and these fundamental disagreements enable scholars to reason.

In Natural Right and History Strauss begins with a critique of the epistemology of Max Weber, follows with a brief engagement with the relativism of Martin Heidegger (who goes unnamed), and continues with a discussion of the evolution of Natural Right in analyzing the thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. He concludes by critiquing Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke. At the heart of the book are excerpts of classical political philosophy, such as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. A selection of Strauss's essays published under the title, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism offers an introduction to his thinking: "Social Science and Humanism", "An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism", "On Classical Political Philosophy", "Thucydides and the Meaning of Political History", and "How to Begin to Study Medieval Philosophy" are among his topics. Much of his philosophy is a reaction to the works of Heidegger. Indeed, Strauss wrote that Heidegger's thinking must be understood and confronted before any complete formulation of modern political theory is possible. For Strauss, Plato was the philosopher who could match Heidegger.

Strauss partially approached the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard through his understanding of Heidegger which he placed under the general rubric of "existentialism", a movement with a "flabby periphery" but a "hard center" (see his 1961 essay, Relativism and the Study of Man). He wrote that Nietzsche was the first philosopher to properly understand relativism, an idea grounded in a general acceptance of Hegelian historicism. Yet Martin Heidegger sanitized and politicized Nietzsche. Whereas Nietzsche believed "our own principles, including the belief in progress, will become as relative as all earlier principles had shown themselves to be" and "the only way out seems to be... that one voluntarily choose life-giving delusion instead of deadly truth, that one fabricate a myth", Heidegger himself believed that the tragic nihilism of Nietzsche was itself a "myth" formed by mankind, not guided by the defective Western conception of Being Heidegger traced to Plato. For Strauss, as evidenced in his published correspondence with Alexandre Kojève, the possibility that Hegel was correct when he postulated an end of history meant an end to philosophy, and an end to nature as understood by classical political philosophy. Strauss was much more sympathetic to Nietzsche's idea of tragedy in this prospect compared to Heidegger's belief that nihilism, properly understood, contained the possibility of mankind's salvation.

Strauss on reading

In 1952 Strauss published Persecution and the Art of Writing; a work that advanced the possibility that philosophers wrote esoterically to avoid persecution by the state or religious authority, while also being able to reach potential philosophers within the pious faithful. From this point on in his scholarship, Strauss deepened his conception of this means of communication between philosophers and “potential knowers”. Stemming from his study of Maimonides and Al Farabi, and then extended to his reading of Plato (he mentions particularly the discussion of writing in the Phaedrus) Strauss thought that an esoteric text was the proper type for philosophic learning. Rather than simply outlining the philosopher's thoughts, the esoteric text forces readers to do their own thinking and learning. As Socrates says in the Phaedrus, writing does not respond when questioned but this type of writing invites a kind of dialogue with the reader, thereby reducing the problems of the written word. It was therefore also a teaching tool, and even a filter to help prevent the creation of Alcibiades-like students. One of the political dangers Strauss pointed to was that of students' too quickly accepting dangerous ideas. This was indeed also relevant in the trial of Socrates, where his relationship with Alcibiades was used against him.

File:PersecutionWritingStrauss.jpg

Persecution and the Art of Writing.

Ultimately, Strauss believed that philosophers offered both an "exoteric" or salutary teaching, and an "esoteric" or true teaching, which was concealed from the general reader. By maintaining this distinction, Strauss is often accused of having written esoterically himself. This opinion is perhaps encouraged because many of Strauss' works are difficult and sometimes mysterious. Moreover, a careful reading will show that he also emphasized that writers using this lost form of writing often left contradictions and other excuses to examine the writing more carefully. There are many examples of this in Strauss own published works, and thus is a source for much debate surrounding Strauss.

Therefore a controversy exists surrounding Strauss' interpretation of the existing philosophical canon. Strauss believed that the writings of many philosophers contained both an exoteric and esoteric teaching which is often not perceived by modern academics. Most famously, he believed that Plato's Republic should never have been read as a proposal for a real regime (as it is in the works of Karl Popper for example). But, according to Strauss, generally this kind of exoteric/esoteric dichotomy became unused by the time of Kant. Similarly well known are his espousals of the philosophical credentials of Machiavelli and Xenophon.

Strauss on politics

According to Strauss, modern Social Science was flawed. It claimed the ground by which truth could be discovered on an unexamined acceptance of the fact-value distinction. Strauss doubted the fact-value distinction was a fundamental category of the mind and studied the evolution of the concept from its roots in Enlightenment philosophy to Max Weber, a thinker Strauss credited with a “serious and noble mind”. Weber wanted to separate values from science, but according to Strauss was really a derivative thinker, deeply influenced by Nietzsche’s relativism. Therefore, Strauss treated politics not as something that could be studied from afar. A political scientist examining politics with a value-free scientific eye, for Strauss, was impossible, not just a tragic self-delusion. Positivism, the heir to the traditions of both Auguste Comte and Max Weber, in making purportedly value-free judgments, failed the ultimate test of justifying its own existence, which would require a value-judgment.

While modern liberalism had stressed the pursuit of individual liberty as its highest goal, Strauss felt that there should be a greater interest in the problem of human excellence and political virtue. Through his writings, Strauss constantly raised the question of how, and to what extent, freedom and excellence can coexist. Without deciding this issue, Strauss refused to make do with any simplistic or one-sided resolutions of the Socratic question: What is the good for the city and man?

Liberalism and nihilism

Strauss taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism ("Epilogue"). The first was a “brutal” nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. These ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics and moral standards and replace it by force with a supreme authority from which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. The second type — the "gentle" nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies — was a kind of value-free aimlessness and hedonism, which he saw as permeating the fabric of contemporary American society. In the belief that 20th century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this situation. The resultant study led him to revive classical political philosophy as a source by which political action could be judged.

File:Cityandmanstrauss.jpg

Cover of The City and Man.

Noble lies and deadly truths

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether it is true that "noble lies" have no role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. Are "myths" needed to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure a stable society? Or can men dedicated to relentlessly examining, in Nietzsche's language, those "deadly truths", flourish freely? Thus, is there a limit to the political, and what can be known absolutely? In The City and Man, Strauss discusses the myths outlined in Plato's Republic that are required for all governments. These include a belief that the state's land belongs to it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately, and that citizenship is rooted in something more than the accidents of birth. Seymour Hersh observes that Strauss endorsed "noble lies": myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society.

According to Strauss, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies had mistaken the city-in-speech described in Plato's Republic for a blueprint for regime reform — which it was not. Strauss quotes Cicero, "The Republic does not bring to light the best possible regime but rather the nature of political things — the nature of the city" (Strauss and Cropsey 68). Strauss himself argued in many publications that the city-in-speech was unnatural, precisely because "it is rendered possible by the abstraction from eros" (Strauss and Cropsey 60). The city-in-speech abstracted from eros, or bodily needs, thus could never guide politics in the manner Popper claimed. Though very skeptical of "progress," Strauss was equally skeptical about political agendas of "return" (which is the term he used in contrast to progress). In fact, he was consistently suspicious of anything claiming to be a solution to an old political or philosophical problem. He spoke of the danger in trying to ever finally resolve the debate between rationalism and traditionalism in politics. In particular, along with many in the pre-World War II German Right, he feared people trying to force a "world state" to come into being in the future, thinking that it would inevitably become a tyranny.

Ancients and Moderns

Strauss constantly stressed the importance of two dichotomies in political philosophy: Athens and Jerusalem (Reason vs. Revelation) and Ancient versus Modern political philosophy. The "Ancients" were the Socratic philosophers and their intellectual heirs, and the "Moderns" start with Niccolò Machiavelli. The contrast between Ancients and Moderns was understood to be related to the public presentation of the possibly unresolvable tension between Reason and Revelation. The Socratics, reacting to the first Greek philosophers, brought philosophy back to earth, and hence back to the marketplace, making it more political. The Moderns reacted to the dominance of revelation in medieval society by promoting the possibilities of Reason very strongly — which in turn leads to problems in modern politics and society. In particular, Thomas Hobbes, under the influence of Bacon, re-oriented political science to what was most solid, but most low in man, setting a precedent for John Locke, and the later economic approach to political thought, such as initially in David Hume, and Adam Smith.

Not unlike Winston Churchill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Thomas Jefferson, Strauss believed that the vices of a democratic regime must be known — and not left unquestioned — so that its virtues might triumph. However, insofar as his teaching suggested that the argument for the pre-eminence of democracy is not an apodictic principle- not self evident or beyond contradiction- he has gained the reputation for being an enemy to democracy

Strauss in the Public View

Strauss is a controversial figure. He is controversial not only for his political views, but because some of his students and their followers are themselves controversial public figures. For example, Allan Bloom, best known for his critique of higher education The Closing of the American Mind, was very close to Strauss (their relationship is lampooned in Saul Bellow's quasi-biographical novel Ravelstein, where the minor character Davarr represents Strauss and the central character Ravelstein represents Bloom). Harry V. Jaffa, another student of Strauss, served as a speechwriter for 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and is a proponent of Declarationism constitutional theory. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense during the United States invasion of Iraq and later President of the World Bank, was briefly a student of Strauss; Wolfowitz attended two courses which Strauss taught on Plato and Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. James Mann claims that Wolfowitz chose the University of Chicago because Strauss taught there and believed him to be "a unique figure, an irreplaceable asset," recommended to him by teacher Allan Bloom who taught at Cornell when Wolfowitz was an undergraduate there. Wolfowitz himself has claimed to be more of a student of Albert Wohlstetter. The Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which worked under Wolfowitz to gather intelligence for the Iraq War, was headed by Abram Shulsky, another of Strauss's students. Harvey C. Mansfield, though never a student of Strauss, is a noted Straussian (as followers of Strauss frequently identify themselves) and prominent neoconservative whose notable students include Andrew Sullivan, Elliott Abrams, Alan Keyes, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, and Irving Kristol.

Critics of Strauss also accuse him of elitism and anti-democratic sentiment. Shadia Drury, author of 1999's Leo Strauss and the American Right, argues that Strauss taught different things to different students, and inculcated an elitist strain in American political leaders that is linked to imperialist militarism and Christian fundamentalism. Drury accuses Strauss of teaching that "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them." Drury adds, "The Weimar Republic was his model of liberal democracy... liberalism in Weimar, in Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews."

On the other hand, Strauss is also criticized by some on the right, especially by paleoconservatives. For example, Paul Gottfried often writes about his views on why Strauss' ideology is allegedly not really conservative or right-wing at all. He writes, "The Democrats are less inclined than the Republicans to push the war policies favored by the Straussians. Although this reluctance may be due to their preoccupation with social questions at home, the Democrats are less open than the Republicans to Straussian imperial projects at the present time, if not necessarily for the future. Moreover, the establishment Right and its Republican organizational structure have become scavengers, living off yesterday’s leftist rhetoric. What Claes Ryn calls the 'new Jacobinism' of the neoconservative- and Straussian-controlled pseudo-Right is no longer 'new.' It is the warmed-over rhetoric of Saint-Juste and Trotsky that the philosophically impoverished American Right has taken over with mindless alacrity. Republican operators and think tanks apparently believe they can carry the electorate by appealing to yesterday’s leftist clichés." The late Samuel Francis agreed, charging Straussian ideology with influencing a powerful neoconservative cabal that "provides for the left—to serve as a political formula for preserving the New Deal-Great Society regime, even as the real conservatism began to rip it apart intellectually and to win political battles against it with Richard Nixon, George Wallace, and Ronald Reagan."

Others, such as Steven Smith, question the link between Strauss and neoconservative thought, arguing that Strauss was never personally active in politics, never endorsed imperialism, and questioned the utility of political philosophy for the practice of politics.Robert Alter, "Neocon or Not?", The New York Times Book Review, June 25, 2006]], accessed February 16, 2007.</ref> Those who do make such a link, Smith argues, misread Strauss's published writings.

See also

• Neoconservatism
• Allan Bloom
• Shadia Drury
• William Kristol
• Anne Norton
• Francis Fukuyama
• Stanley Rosen
• Carl Schmitt
• Paul Wolfowitz

Bibliography

Publications by Leo Strauss

Books and articles

• Gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Heinrich Meier. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996- . In 3 vols. (published to date [2006?]): Vol. 1, Die Religionskritik Spinozas und zugehoerige Schriften; vol. 2: Philosophie und Gesetz, Fruehe Schriften; vol. 3, Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft und zugehoerige Schriften-Briefe.
• Leo Strauss: The Early Writings (1921-1932). (Trans. from parts of Gesammelte Schriften). Trans. Michael Zank. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.
• La Critique de la religion chez Hobbes: une contribution a la comprehension des Lumieres (1933-34). Trans. Corine Pelluchon. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, [date of publication?]. [A translation of an unpublished and unfinished manuscript by Leo Strauss of a book on Hobbes, written in 1933-1934, and first published in the Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3.]
• Die Religionskritik Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschaft: Untersuchungen zu Spinozas Theologisch-politischen Traktat. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1930.
• Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. Trans. Elsa M. Sinclair. New York: Schocken, 1965. [English translation of La Critique de la religion chez Hobbes.]
• Philosophie und Gesetz: Beitraege zum Verstandnis Maimunis und seiner Vorlaeufer. Berlin: Schocken, 1935.
• Philosophy and Law. Trans. Eve Adler. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995. [Translation of Philosophie und Gesetz.]
• Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft in ihrer Genesis. Neuweid am Rhein: Hermann Luchterland, 1965. [Published version of a book which Strauss completed in 1936 but, for political reasons, was not publishable at that time.]
• The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis. Trans. Elsa M. Sinclair. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936. [Translation, with some notable modifications, of Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft in ihrer Genesis.]
• "The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon". Social Research 6 (1939): 502-36.
• "On a New Interpretation of Plato’s Political Philosophy". Social Research 13 (1946): 326-67.
• "On Collingwood’s Philosophy of History". Review of Metaphysics 5 (June 1952): 559-86.
• "On the Intention of Rousseau". Social Research 14 (1947): 455-87.
• "On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero". In On Tyranny, rev. ed., 1948; New York: Free Press, [date of rev. ed.?].
• Persecution and the Art of Writing. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1952.
• Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
• Thoughts on Machiavelli. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958.
• What is Political Philosophy?. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959.
• History of Political Philosophy. Co-editor with Joseph Cropsey. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
• The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
• Socrates and Aristophanes. New York: Basic Books, 1966.
• Liberalism Ancient and Modern. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
• Xenophon's Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the "Oeconomicus". Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1970.
• Xenophon's Socrates. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1972.
• The Argument and the Action of Plato's LAWS. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975.
• Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy. Introd. by Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.
• The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss—Essays and Lectures by Leo Strauss. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
• On Plato's Symposium. Ed. Seth Benardete. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001.
• Faith and Political Philosophy: the Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, 1934-1964. Ed. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1993.

Writings about Maimonides and Jewish philosophy

• Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought. Ed. Kenneth Hart Green. Albany: SUNY P, 1997.
• Spinoza's Critique of Religion
• Philosophy and Law
• "Quelques remarques sur la science politique de Maimonide et de Farabi". Revue des Etudes juives 100 bis (1937): 1-37.
• "Der Ort der Vorsehungslehre nach der Ansicht Maimunis". Monatschrift fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 81 (1937): 448-56.
• "Maimonides' Statement on Political Science". Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 22 (1953): 115-30.
• "Notes on Maimonides' Book of Knowledge. 269-83 in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to G. G. Scholem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967.
• "How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed". In The Guide of the Perplexed, Volume One. Trans. Shlomo Pines. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1963.
• "The Literary Character of The Guide for the Perplexed". 38-94 in Persecution and the Art of Writing. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1952.
• Maimonide. Ed. Remi Brague. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1988.

Works about Leo Strauss

• "A Giving of Accounts." In Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity – Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought Ed. Kenneth H. Green. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997.
• Benardete, Seth. Encounters and Reflections: Conversations with Seth Benardete. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002.
• Bloom, Allan. "Leo Strauss". 235-56 in Giants and Dwarfs: Essays 1960-1990. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
• Bluhm, Harald. Die Ordnung der Ordnung : das politische Philosophieren von Leo Strauss. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2002.
• Brague, Rémi. "Leo Strauss and Maimonides". 93-114 in Leo Strauss's Thought. Ed. Alan Udoff. Boulder: Lynne Reiner, 1991.
• Bruell, Christopher. "A Return to Classical Political Philosophy and the Understanding of the American Founding." Review of Politics 53 (1991): 173-186.
• Drury, Shadia B. Leo Strauss and the American Right. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
• –––. The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
• –––. "Leo Strauss and the Neoconservatives". Evatt Foundation, September 11, 2004.
• –––. The Esoteric Philosophy of Leo Strauss, Political Theory, Vol. 13, No. 3, Aug, 1985
• –––. Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor, Free Inquiry magazine, June 2004.
• –––. "Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor". Free Inquiry 24.4.
• –––. "STRAUSS, LEO (1899-1973)". Onine posting. Faculty webpage for Shadia B. Drury, University of Regina Canada Research Chair in Social Justice. Accessed May 26, 2007.
• –––, and Matthew Rothschild. "Political Ideas of Leo Strauss". Interview of Shadia Drury. Progressive Radio (2005).
• Green, Kenneth, Jew and Philosopher – The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
• Holmes, Stephen. The Anatomy of Antiliberalism Harvard University Press 1996, ISBN 0-674-03185-7.
• Ivry, Alfred L. "Leo Strauss on Maimonides". 75-91 in Leo Strauss’s Thought. Ed. Alan Udoff. Boulder: Lynne Reiner, 1991.
• Kinzel, Till. Platonische Kulturkritik in Amerika. Studien zu Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 2002.
• Kochin, Michael S. "Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss’s Persecution and the Art of Writing." Review of Politics 64 (Spring 2002): 261-283.
• Lampert, Laurence, Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Macpherson, C. B., "Hobbes’s Bourgeois Man". In Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
• McAllister, Ted V. Revolt Against Modernity : Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin & the Search for Postliberal Order. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. 1996.
• McWilliams, Wilson Carey. "Leo Strauss and the Dignity of American Political Thought." Review of Politics 60 (1998): 231-46.
• Meier, Heinrich, "How Strauss Became Strauss". 363-82 in Enlightening Revolutions: Essays in Honor of Ralph Lerner. Ed. Svetozar Minkov. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.
• Meier, Heinrich. "Editor's Introduction[s]". Gesammelte Schriften. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996- . 3 vols.
• Meier, Heinrich. Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.
• Meier, Heinrich, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.
• Melzer, Arthur. "Esotericism and the Critique of Historicism". American Political Science Review 100 (2006): 279-295.
• Minowitz, Peter. "Machiavellianism Come of Age? Leo Strauss on Modernity and Economics". The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993): 157-97.
• Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Hermeneutics and Classical Political Thought in Leo Strauss", 178-89 in Essays on Ancient and Modern Judaism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994.
• Neumann, Harry, Liberalism. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic P, 1991.
• Norton, Anne. Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire. New Haven & London, Yale UP, 2004.
• Pangle, Thomas L. "The Epistolary Dialogue Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin". Review of Politics 53:1 (1991): 100-125.
• –––. "Leo Strauss’s Perspective on Modern Politics,” Perspectives on Political Science 33:4 (Fall, 2004), 197-203.
• –––. Leo Strauss: An Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.
• Pelluchon, Corine. Leo Strauss: une autre raison d'autres Lumieres; Essai sur la crise de la rationalite contemporaine. Paris: J. Vrin, 2005.
• Rosen, Stanley, "Hermeneutics as Politics" in Hermeneutics as Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, 87-140.
• Sheppard, Eugene R. Leo Strauus and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher. Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP, 2006. ISBN 158465600X.
• Smith, Steven. Reading Leo Strauss. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006. ISBN 0-226-76402-8.
• Tanguay, Daniel. Leo Strauss: une biographie intellectuelle. Paris, 2005. ISBN 2-253-13067-2.
• Tarcov, Nathan. "On a Certain Critique of 'Straussianism'". Review of Politics 53 (1991): 3-18.
• –––. "Philosophy and History: Tradition and Interpretation in the Work of Leo Strauss". Polity 16 (1983): 5-29.
• –––, and Thomas L. Pangle, "Epilogue: Leo Strauss and the History of Political Philosophy". 907-38 in History of Political Philosophy. Ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. 3rd ed/ 1963; Chicago & London, U of Chicago P, 1987.
• Verskin, Alan. "Reading Strauss on Maimonides: A New Approach". Journal of Textual Reasoning 3.1(June 2004).
• West, Thomas G. "Jaffa Versus Mansfield: Does America Have a Constitutional or a "Declaration of Independence" Soul?" Perspectives on Political Science31 (Fall 2002): 35-46.
• Zuckert, Catherine H. Postmodern Platos. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.
• Zuckert, Catherine H., and Michael Zuckert. The Truth about Leo Strauss. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006.

Strauss Family

• Lüders, Joachim and Ariane Wehner (1989). Mittelhessen - eine Heimat für Juden? Das Schicksal der Familie Strauss aus Kirchhain. Marburg: Gymnasium Philippinum. (Title translates to English as Middle Hesse - a Homeland for Jews? The fate of the Strauss Family from Kirchhain.)

Selected aditional sources and resources

General resources

• Claremont Insitute For the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy––Claremont Institute website. (Includes a search facility.)

Scholarly articles

• Braque, Remi. Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: Leo Strauss's "Muslim" Understanding of Greek Philosophy, Poetics Today 19.2 (Summer, 1998).
• Levine, Peter. "A 'Right' Nietzschean: Leo Strauss and his Followers" (1995).
• Pippin, Robert B. "The Modern World of Leo Strauss". Political Theory 20.3 (August 1992).
• Robertson, Neil G. The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought. Animus, 1998.
• Smith, Gregory Bruce. "Leo Strauss and the Straussians: An Anti-Democratic Cult?" Political Science and Politics 30.2 (June 1997).
• West, Thomas G. Online "Jaffa Versus Mansfield Does America Have A Constitutional or A "Declaration of Independence" Soul?" Perspectives on Political Science 31 (Fall 2002).
• "Why Strauss, Why Now?". Introd. to Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism, by Steven B. Smith.
• Xenos, Nicholas. "Leo Strauss and the Rhetoric of the War on Terror". Logos 3.2 (Spring 2004).
• Zuckert, Catherine, and Michael Zuckert."Mr. Strauss Goes to Washington?" Introd. to The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy.

Conservative Criticism of Strauss

• Gottfried, Paul. "Strauss and the Straussians".
• Ryn, Claes G. "Leo Strauss and History".

Related journalistic commentary and other articles

• Allen, Jan. "Straussism: The Philosophy Directing The Age Of Tyranny". Age Of Tyranny News, May 16, 2006.
• "Ayn Rand and the Noble Lie". ARI Watch ("The Ayn Rand Institute Under Review"). (Self-published website.) n.d. Accessed May 22, 2007.
• Ashbrook, Tom, with guests Harvey Mansfield, Shadia B. Drury, and Jack Beatty. "Leo Strauss and the American Right". On Point. WBUR Radio (Boston, Massachusetts). May 15, 2003. Accessed May 26, 2007. (Interviews. Inc. audio link to radio program.)
• Barry, Tom. Leo Strauss and Intelligence Strategy, International Relations Center, February 12, 2004.
• Berkowitz, Peter. What Hath Strauss Wrought? Weekly Standard, June 2, 2003.
• Cronkrite, Al. "Judeo-Christian Decadence at the Fount of Power". EtherZone, May 15, 2003.
• Doliner, Michael. Book Review: Leo Strauss and the American Right. Swans.com, October 10, 2005.
• Franchon, Alain, and Daniel Vernet. "The Strategist and the Philosopher: Leo Strauss and Albert Wohlstetter". Trans. (for CounterPunch) Norman Madarasz. Online posting. CounterPunch, June 2, 2003. Originally published (in French), Le Monde, April 16, 2003; rpt. with permission.
• Goldstein, Yoni. "A Platonic Love Affair: Strauss in the White House". Moment (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor undergraduate student publication), Issue 3 (February-March 2004). Cf. Critical Moment; issue 3 of the previous series, entitled Moment (on "Empire"), is not currently available online. (This article was written by an undergraduate student.)
• Hersh, Seymour M. "Selective Intelligence". The New Yorker, May 12, 2003. Accessed June 1, 2007.
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• "Leo Strauss". SourceWatch (A project of the Center for Media and Democracy). November 14, 2006. Accessed June 1, 2007.
• Leupp, Gary. "The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss and the Neocons". CounterPunch, May 24, 2003.
• Madarasz, Norman. "Behind the Neocon Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss & Allan Bloom". CounterPunch, June 2, 2003.
• McBryde, David. "Leo Strauss". (Self-published essay posted on author's website.) N.d. Accessed June 1, 2007.
• Pfaff, William. The Long Reach of Leo Strauss, International Herald Tribune, May 15, 2003.
• "The New Machiavelli: Leo Strauss and the Politics of Fear". CBC, April 27, 2005.
• Shulsky, Abram, and Gary Schmitt. "Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)" (1998).
• Silva, Jim. Strauss and the neocon takeover, The Lompoc Record. February 6, 2006.
• Skidelsky, Edward. "No More Heroes". Prospect, March 2006.
• Wolin, Richard. "Leo Strauss, Judaism, and Liberalism". The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2006. Accessed May 22, 2007.

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