Together, these essays explore the tensions within the democratic way of life that arise from an attachment to equality, liberty, citizenship, law, and the divine. Above all, this work aims at recovering a more complex understanding of democracy, connecting the perennial questions of political philosophy to the perplexities and crises of modern democracy. The six lectures, written while Strauss was at the New School, and a full transcript of the Walgreen Lectures show Strauss working toward the ideas he would present in fully matured form in his landmark work.
In them, he explores natural right and the relationship between modern philosophers and the thought of the ancient Greek philosophers, as well as the relation of political philosophy to contemporary political science and to major political and historical events, especially the Holocaust and World War II. Rounding out the book are copious annotations and notes to facilitate further study. Score: 4. Extended guides to further reading have been added at the end of each chapter, listing the most important books and articles on each school of thought, as well as relevant journals and web sites.
Popular Books. The Becoming by Nora Roberts. Fear No Evil by James Patterson. Mercy by David Baldacci. Thus the fundamental issues of political philosophy are encountered first-hand, rather than through intermediary summaries of the major texts and theories.
As a result, readers are introduced to political philosophy by doing philosophy. Written in a conversational style, Engaging Political Philosophy is accessible to students and general readers. Instructors can use it in the classroom as a stand-alone textbook, a complement to a standard collection of historical readings, or as a primer to be studied in preparation for contemporary readings.
But what do these ideas really mean? How can politicians across the political spectrum appeal to the same values? This new edition of Adam Swift's highly readable introduction to political philosophy answers these important questions, and includes new material on global justice, feminism, and method in political theory, as well as updated guides to further reading.
This lively and accessible book is ideal for students, but it also brings the insights of the world's leading political philosophers to a wide general audience. Using plenty of examples, it equips readers to think for themselves about the ideas that shape political life. Democracy works best when both politicians and voters move beyond rhetoric to think clearly and carefully about the political principles that should govern their society. But clear thinking is difficult in an age when established orthodoxies have fallen by the wayside.
Bringing political philosophy out of the ivory tower and within the reach of all, this book provides us with tools to cut through the complexities of modern politics. In so doing, it makes a valuable contribution to the democratic process and this new edition will continue to be essential reading for students of political philosophy and theory. All Rights Reserved. Thomas Pangle's Introduction places the work within the context of the entire Straussian corpus and focuses especially on Strauss's late Socratic writings as a key to his mature thought.
For those already familiar with Strauss, Pangle's essay will provoke thought and debate; for beginning readers of Strauss, it provides a fine introduction. A complete bibliography of Strauss's writings if included. In , 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.
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.
Score: 4. The Truth about Leo Strauss puts this question to rest, revealing for the first time how the popular media came to perpetuate such an oversimplified view of such a complex and wide-ranging philosopher. More important, it corrects our perception of Strauss, providing the best general introduction available to the political thought of this misunderstood figure.
Balanced and accessible, The Truth about Leo Strauss is a must-read for anyone who wants to more fully comprehend this enigmatic philosopher and his much-disputed legacy. Score: 5. Editor Pangle has gathered five of Strauss's previously unpublished lectures and five hard-to-find published writings and has arranged them so as to demonstrate the systematic progression of the major themes that underlay Strauss's mature work.
Kesler, National Review. Leo Strauss Author : Kenneth L. The volume presents the most extensive analysis yet published of Strauss's religious heritage and how it related to his work, and includes Strauss's previously unpublished 'Why We Remain Jews, ' an extraordinary essay concerned with the challenge posed to Judaism by modern secular thought.
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