Strauss final exam for Nietzsche's Zarathustra course (University of Chicago, Spring Quarter, 1959) – dictated a week in advance because it is "a bit more difficult than in other quarters":
"There is a great variety of opinions as to the meaning of natural right or natural law.
Strauss introducing his first students (New School for Social Research, Greenwich Village NYC, Spring 1939, Wednesdays 5-7 pm) to "the problem of happiness" in Aristotle's Ethics. "The virtuous man will, by virtue of his virtue, steadfastly bear all misfortunes and by this very
Strauss on Aristotle's de anima III.5 and "Active Intellect"
"De anima is terribly difficult. As for the active intellect, I try to understand it by starting as follows: a new-born human baby exposed in the wood and brought up by wolves or monkeys—here, the potential intellect
Strauss and The Three Waves of Modernity
The evening after the lecture (Cornell, March 25, 1964), Strauss had an informal discussion.
Q: Must man forgo the mastery of nature to recover a sense of the purpose of man?
LS: Rephrased: How can we live as thoughtful individuals in
Strauss on Herodotus (to Klein, Oct 1938)
"...as for Herodotus, I am really overwhelmed and prostrate before such art (= skill). My lucky star would have it that his work is indeed the only model of Plato's I am aware of (perhaps, however, everything we have learned about the
More Benardete from his Chicago/Strauss days. The modern novel in relation to ancient poetry (see also the preface to Joseph Andrews, a novel much enjoyed by Strauss)
Leo Strauss on Philosophy (and not Books)
"We assume that training in reading books is an essential part of the philosophic training. Practically every intellectual activity is today inseparable from the ability to read and write, and in particular from the ability to read
Strauss intended to write a study on causality (on the unsolved Humean problem; determinism; and ex nihilo nihil gignit) near the end of his life. It was going to include Kant on Lucretius and L himself; Hume's critique of Hobbes's de Corpore; causality in Leibniz, Wolff, Hobbes,
Here is the video of today's discussion of Strauss
Thank you
@alexpriou
@Aliocha24
@HannesKerber
Rasoul Namazi, Marco Menon, and Eric Buzzetti and the 100+ attendees!
Order of speakers (about 30 min each):
Eric Buzzetti, Concordia University, Montréal,
Fascinating discussions on 𝗙𝗨𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗟𝗘𝗢 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗨𝗦𝗦 𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗗𝗜𝗘𝗦! International panel with Alex Priou,
@alexpriou
, Alexis Carré (
@Aliocha24
), Zarko Minkov (
@ls_foundation
), Marco Menon, Eric Buzzetti, Rasoul Namazi, and yours truly.
At the reopening of Marburg University on Sept 25, 1945, Julius Ludwig Ebbinghaus, the US-appointed rector, gave an address Strauss more than two decades later called "most thoughtful and decent." More than two decades earlier LS had attended E's courses and was still grateful
Tales from Shakespeare. Just like he did for his 1966 Socrates and Aristophanes, Strauss says that his model for a book he was planning in 1938 (Deeds and Speeches: An Introduction into Greek Political Thought) was Charles and Mary Lamb's Tale from Shakespeare (paraphrase,
Patočka letter to Jacob Klein (July 22, 1933) [transl.]:
'I see little of Professor Husserl these days. He's gone to Schlucksee for a summer stay... Heidegger goes forth into sharp attacks against phenomenology, albeit mostly in a veiled form. Have you read his rectoral address?
An international 💫 panel on Strauss, Friday April 26, 2024, 10-1 pm ET
Hosts: Svetozar Minkov, Roosevelt University
Hannes Kerber, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
🔜
Speakers:
👉Eric Buzzetti, Concordia University, Montréal, "The Theologico-Political Problem: Xenophon's
Leo Strauss on Shakespeare (Part ½)
In 1941 Leo Strauss taught a course focusing on Shakespeare, but the poet appears infrequently in his published writings. A Shakespeare play and a Platonic dialogue share unique interpretive difficulties (e.g. City and Man), but there is scant
Strauss on Engels' Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
"Marxism is based on a very definite notion of a truly human life. The truly human life may be 'trans-moral' in the sense that it transcends morality as traditionally understood. Nevertheless, Marxism agrees with all moral
Strauss compared Hobbes to Sherlock Holmes and Machiavelli to Professor Moriarty. He had also considered comparing Hobbes to ox-like Inspector Bull of Scotland Yard (Eel Pie Murders, 1933).
Strauss' "must resist in our life encroachments due, not to law, but to anonymous influences" is comparable to a reflection by Josef Pieper:
"education means making people immune to the mass media"
from Exercises in the Elements (St. Augustine Press)
Strauss and The Three Waves of Modernity
The evening after the lecture (Cornell, March 25, 1964), Strauss had an informal discussion.
Q: Must man forgo the mastery of nature to recover a sense of the purpose of man?
LS: Rephrased: How can we live as thoughtful individuals in
Rémi Brague on exotericism: "Joyce’s Ulysses is a difficult and subtly composed book, as much as the Book of Kells. But we possess the keys, which is enough to then need in order to see the stages emerge of the Odyssey, body parts, arts, colors, etc. Joyce supplied the keys in
Rare Strauss on Plato's Ion (1948)
"the poet is not able to make poems as long as the νοῦς is in him - he must be empty - the God takes away, and takes out of them, their νοῦς and He is speaking in them. In the case of the τέχναι the man is the speaker; in the case of the
"The highest, the only true form of immortalizing oneself is learning, understanding. And of course that no longer means as an individual, because the understander as understander is not Mr. X or Y but the intellect in him. Since this is not sufficient for man, there are two
I've related this before, but I do return to a memory of a discussion with a distinguished philosopher who told me, "Tenure should be given for not publishing."
Hyperbolic, perhaps, but a good deal of truth embedded.
From Strauss' lecture on Rousseau at University of Chicago in the summer of 1949:
How can materialistic physics have given rise to political idealism?
In Hobbes, there is already a combination of materialistic cosmology and concern with the right social order; but the concern
Strauss led a discussion for Allan Bloom’s Cornell class (April 1964, either Government 462, Origins of Western Political Thought or Government 561-62, Seminar in Political Theory) – on C.S. Lewis’ “men without chests” and “the heart”: θυμός (thumos/spiritedness), ἔρως (eros);
Strauss on Aristotle's de anima III.5 and "Active Intellect"
"De anima is terribly difficult. As for the active intellect, I try to understand it by starting as follows: a new-born human baby exposed in the wood and brought up by wolves or monkeys—here, the potential intellect
Strauss to Scholem, Jan 27, 1973
"I cannot help sharing your admiration for the intelligence of Hamann while detesting his lousy character. Did you ever read Hegel’s review of Hamann’s writings (now conveniently accessible in Hoffmeister’s
ed. of the Berlina writings)? Luther,
More Strauss to Klein on Herodotus (Oct 15, 1938)
"οὗτος δὴ ὦν ὁ Κανδαύλης ἠράσθη τῆς ἑωυτοῦ γυναικός, ἐρασθεὶς δὲ ἐνόμιζέ οἱ εἶναι γυναῖκα πολλὸν πασέων καλλίστην....χρῆν γὰρ Κανδαύλῃ γενέσθαι κακῶς,
(it was this Candaules who fell in love with his own wife
"Our Constitution secures the rights of individuals to seek satisfaction for their desires, but it is compelled to distinguish lawful from lawless desires. Exclusive reliance on rights generates irritable litigiousness and empty yearning. Our public discourse is impoverished if
When Benardete taught this passage (the center of the Statesman) in 1967, he focused on "one should be incapable of being discountenanced [δυσωπέω*] and stopping before one confines all the family kin within a single similarity and comprehends them with the being of some genus."
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss
Willmoore Kendall conceived of the Ph.D. program at the University of Dallas – The Institute of Philosophic Studies (IPS) – as an interdisciplinary degree consisting of courses in Politics, Philosophy, Literature, and Theology. Another unique
“Machiavelli's characters in his Florentine Histories speak as a matter of course explicitly of God's justice as the cause of their actual or hoped for successes against their enemies as well as of their own misfortunes, and of their successes as proofs of the justice of their
Strauss on "das Problem des Schönen" (1950)
But is there not a radical difference between καλόν (beautiful) and ἀγαθόν (good) such that things are καλά (beautiful) in themselves—and not merely for us—i.e. a gentle landscape, a stern landscape, a dull landscape— —or are these
Joe Sachs translates βαυκοπανοῦργοι at NE 1127b26 as "hyperprecious" and notes: “It has a first half that means prissily fastidious (baukos), jammed onto a word for shameless people who stop at nothing (panourgoi). The sort of person meant might claim, in a self-satisfied tone,
Regarding what Strauss means by his "interpretation of Plato's Gorgias," an interpretation put into doubt by the section of the Symposium where Socrates appears as a Jeremiah (215d6-216a2):
"The philosophers and the demos in the sense indicated are separated by a gulf; their
Strauss on Plato's Symposium 215d6-216a2:
"the religious effect of S' rhetoric: S. successfully preaches repentance - S. as Jeremiah [contradicts my interpretation of Gorgias? - but also Alcibiades' assertion of S' hubris]"
A supplement to p. 265 of
Bloom:
Strauss: "That the Houy. have no gods can also be explained by the fact that they are the gods, i.e. the only beings surpassing men in wisdom and goodness. The Horse-Men also take the place of the God-Man."
In an Oct 10 '39 letter to Jacob Klein, Strauss, having reported on Hesiod's Theogony ("indispensable for understanding the Timaeus....esoterically the Muses are the daughters of Ocean"), writes: "what Plato says in the Theaetetus about the poets of the past, namely that they
One of these days, a large comet will hit Earth and destroy almost all life, as has happened many times in the past.
Eventually, the Sun will expand enough to boil the oceans and destroy all life.
Either become a spacefaring civilization or die – those all the two choices.
Strauss on Pegis, Thomism, and science
Social Research, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1946), 260-62; reprinted in What is Political Philosophy, 284-86
Also: Pegis "believes, however, that as regards the central question- the question of creation- the Aristotelian doctrine is not opposed
Strauss to Albert Salomon (Jan '40), in response to the Salomon's Oct '39 Tocqueville piece
Strauss comments on only a couple of sentences in Salomon's article. Re: "The demonry of nature in the ancient and medieval world is supplanted by the demonry of social institutions to
A list of books on Strauss:
the quickly compiled list has not been ordered in any way and doesn't include yet Chinese, Russian, Central Asian, Japanese (except 1), Korean, Indian, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic books, but please tell us of books that are
“Now as long as we cannot live and take our bearings in the world without a notion of the health of the mind—we mean of course that to be of healthy mind is good—this question doesn’t arise. Perhaps it should arise, but somehow a certain instinct tells us, no matter what
@ls_foundation
P.S.- I have still not found the place in the Cicero class where Strauss addresses the health of the soul.
In the most serious sense, the illness of the soul is injustice. We like to say, "What if justice is, or is necessary to, the health of the soul?
Bloom toasting Bellow "...it is not easy to honor Saul. With such high aspirations, he Is all too aware of the ambiguities of honor. He expresses how little he rests on his laurels with a favorite joke, which I shall pre-empt. It concerns a young American tenor who gets a job as
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 2 (Before America)
de Alvarez: What was your first acquaintance with Strauss's work?
Gadamer: I hope I am right in saying that the first was the introductions to the work of Moses Mendelssohn. That he sent me when he was in Berlin. And
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss
Willmoore Kendall conceived of the Ph.D. program at the University of Dallas – The Institute of Philosophic Studies (IPS) – as an interdisciplinary degree consisting of courses in Politics, Philosophy, Literature, and Theology. Another unique
"Regarding paintings, I didn’t know that at all until I read a marvelous analysis of a painting of Picasso by Mr. von Blanckenhagen, who was formerly at this university, and where I saw that it is possible to interpret a painting as exactly as a literary text. And I suppose that
2/2
To Salomon's "This freedom in asceticism is the last and ultimate opportunity for human self-realization in disintegrating periods" and similar passages in his 1939 Tocqueville piece, Strauss writes:
"But what does 'a natural world' mean? I find that you make too great a
Strauss to Albert Salomon (Jan '40), in response to the Salomon's Oct '39 Tocqueville piece
Strauss comments on only a couple of sentences in Salomon's article. Re: "The demonry of nature in the ancient and medieval world is supplanted by the demonry of social institutions to
Strauss on Bertrand Russell's "The Science to Save us from Science"
Strauss challenges several things in Russell's piece (e.g. why the exclusion of lunatics? and the implication of a natural hierarchy to which Russell otherwise objects), but above all he asks what if there is a
"Kouzma Proutkov": "The moon is more useful than the sun because it gives light at night when you can trip and fall into ditch while the sun shines during the day when it is bright anyway."
In his review of Walker's Machiavelli,
Strauss says, "All moralists who are worth their salt have always felt that pure, intransigent justice is the road to the hemlock, the cross, and the stake, rather than to advantage in this world. 'The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's
🐷🇩🇰🐝🇩🇰🐷
OUT NOW
SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT III
To be or not to be—that is the question.
Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous Part'ly Examin'd Life,
or to listen to TNT, bare bodkin out,
swilling thine premium hooch?
LISTEN:
Memorial addresses for Strauss at the New School (his colleague at the New School, Erich Hula, with whom LS claimed to share a moral taste, and Strauss's students: Seth Benardete, Richard Kennington, and Howard White)
"Thirty and more years ago already, he would agree to meet
Strauss on Reinhold Niebuhr (a favorite thinker of Kennedy's, Obama's et al). Strauss analyzed N's Nature and the Destiny of Man: a Christian Interpretation [1943] and Faith and History: a Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History [1949] in early courses at Chicago
Strauss on Kierkegaard
There is a line in paragraph 15 of Strauss's so-called autobiographical preface (Liberalism Ancient and Modern, p. 232, lines 6-7): "The need for external credentials of revelation (tradition and miracles) disappears as its internal credentials come to
From an early version of the Epilogue on the scientific study of politics
«Let us try to state the first impression which an altogether uninitiated and innocent but otherwise properly qualified youth is likely to receive from the new political science. The world conjured by the
Strauss, at the end of his life (Sept '73), writing to Alexander Altmann's about A's biography of Moses Mendelssohn
“p. 408, last paragraph, confirming my interpretation of ‘I shall be what I shall be’ which I did not owe to anyone, not even to Maimonides”
(Strauss also corrects
“Plato” in History of Political Philosophy
“Oligarchy must give to each the unqualified right to dispose of his property as he sees fit. It thus renders inevitable the emergence of 'drones,' i.e., of members of the ruling class who are either burdened with debt or already
Prometheus, Zeus as a "cruel tyrant," and the Bible
Havelock: "Aeschylus' Prometheus is the embodiment of intelligence"
LS: "Yet P. says that he put blind hopes in men."
H: "Greatest invention is art of medicine to ward off all disease"
LS: "Can medicine heal all mortal diseases
Jacobi's conversation with Lessing refers to a poem by Goethe, "Prometheus." Strauss notes that Mendelssohn calls the poem "wretchedness" ("Armseeligkeit") in To the Friends of Lessing but in a private letter M. finds it a pleasing persiflage exposing Spinozism in its
Snippets from Strauss' reading group on Plato's Laches at Stanford (1960-61):
195d ff - Nikias indicates that good things may be bad (because leading to hybris) and bad things may be good (because leading to humility). (Compared Aristotle on good things being good for the good
Leo Strauss on 'Thinking Machines' and Prudence
And the project of which you surely have heard, if only from the daily papers, of thinking machines which “quote think unquote” as well as man, or perhaps better than man, is a necessary consequence of it. If there is no essential
Strauss on Aristotle's Politics
“A. lists five causes of change in oligarchies. The first is the unjust treatment of the masses by the government, i.e., resistance which generally begins outside the ruling class (e.g., the exclusion of some wealthy persons from office, or the
This from the 1963 Gorgias course is a pithy summary of Strauss on Prometheus:
"Prometheus is of course not wise. You only have to read [Aeschylus'] Prometheus to see that he is not wise. He is a great inventor, sure. Almost a man who could have built an atomic bomb if technology
@alexpriou
@HarrisonGarlic1
Good pointers by
@alexpriou
. LS reread the play for his Aristophanes book (see the chapters on the Knights, the Birds, & the Thesmophoriazusai). Agree is extremely stimulating as is Bacon's interpretation (
#26
in Wisdom of the Ancients)
Nixon responded to a draft of a collection on US military policy edited by Strauss's student Robert Goldwin. Nixon took exception to the stated implications of the word "unthinkable" ("don't give thought to the awesome problems") and Goldwin revised his preface (finding a way to
For those interested in such things, here's the 1972 NYT ad where Oscar Handlin, Milton Friedman, W.V. Quine, William Riker, Leo Strauss and other bigtime academics endorse Nixon.
Among many Strauss & Arnold Brecht stories, see the 1941 letter where LS compliments Brecht's "The Myth of Is and Ought" (in
@HarvLRev
) and suggests an in-person discussion
A rich conference on Nietzsche, including Strauss's reading...
Human, All-Too-Human
#628
"Seriousness in Play. - In Genoa, I heard from a tower at the time of twilight a long bell play: it did not want to end and sounded, as if
In his commentary on ch. V of Xenophon's Symposium, Strauss had ended his account of the action with the riddlesome: "There is a connection between these two very different reasons [for the irreducibility of the beautiful/noble to the good/useful] and the two alternatives
In his commentary on ch. V of Xenophon's Symposium, Strauss had ended his account of the action with the riddlesome: "There is a connection between these two very different reasons [for the irreducibility of the beautiful/noble to the good/useful] and the two alternatives
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 5 (Why political philosophy? ... and death)
de Alvarez: I wonder if you have any further impressions about his work in general?
Gadamer: You know that every scholar has a time of real openness and so it was especially with me in his book
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 4 (Germany and Heidegger)
de Alvarez: If he had been in Europe, what do you think the effect of his work would have been? Do you think that it would have been much more weakened than its effect in America?
Gadamer: There I am not so sure.
A bit earlier in the same session:
"Aristotle: man generates man; the world always goes its course, sensibly; [there are] no fantastic things.... [but] what we swallow, and perhaps are forced to swallow, are absolutely fantastic things. For me, the most telling example is the
Strauss on Descartes. D. begins the Discourse modestly (“Toutefois il se peut faire que je me trompe, & ce n’est peut-être qu’un peu de cuivre & de verre que je prends pour de l’or & des diamants” and “la mediocrité de mon esprit & courte durée de ma vie”) and arrives at almost
More Strauss on Spinoza's Ethics:
Spinoza’s approach very close to what today is called the scientific approach.
a) purely theoretical - i.e. no value-judgments } hard-boiled
b) the purely theoretical findings used for practice, for manipulation } hard-boiled
Those who are not
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 4 (Germany and Heidegger)
de Alvarez: If he had been in Europe, what do you think the effect of his work would have been? Do you think that it would have been much more weakened than its effect in America?
Gadamer: There I am not so sure.
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 3 (America and Irony)
de Alvarez: You also said something about his special relationship with America, when he came to the United States. How do you think that influenced
his work?
Gadamer: Of course that is what I realized immediately in
from an [undelivered] lecture at
@CatholicUniv
Plato's Laws August 18, 1972
"One can say justly that classical political philosophy is extremely remote from the political life, not only of the Atomic age, but even of 4th century Greece... In spite of this classical political
Plato's Statesman 285b6-c3
Strauss's commentary:
"which apply to them ["both about these things" in SB's translation below], i.e. to the eidē and 'excess and deficiency'" → two kinds of measurements (e.g. arithmetic) apply to ideas as well - cf. Klein's beautiful story"
[Might
From Strauss's description of paragraph 12 of the Peace chapter in his Socrates and Aristophanes, pp. 68-70, using the language of the § itself (≠ Greek shorthand): "Boastfulness is a vice that comedy hits and hurts more directly than any other vice… Comedy would be powerless
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 3 (America and Irony)
de Alvarez: You also said something about his special relationship with America, when he came to the United States. How do you think that influenced
his work?
Gadamer: Of course that is what I realized immediately in
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Leo Strauss Part 2 (Before America)
de Alvarez: What was your first acquaintance with Strauss's work?
Gadamer: I hope I am right in saying that the first was the introductions to the work of Moses Mendelssohn. That he sent me when he was in Berlin. And
Else "Dodo" Klein (Husserl's former daughter-in-law, Jacob Klein's wife): "I must tell a little story about toilet paper. I returned to Germany for the first time in 1949. The economic miracle was just beginning, but much was still unchanged. Göttingen had hardly been bombed at
On Lessing in Birth of Tragedy, §§ 11 and 15
Euripides who “does not understand” Greek tragedy (its doubtful resolution of the “ethical problems”) and sought out another spectator who similarly does not understand (i.e., Socrates). “But if reason appeared to him as the actual
Socrates as Savonarola in Plato's Symposium (not as a Jeremiah, though not difference is not great)
Lessing to Mendelssohn:
Die einzigen sogenannten Bußtränen machen mir zu schaffen, aber ich sorge sehr, die Erinnerung der Annehmlichkeit der Sünde, die man jetzt erst für
Shlomo Pines
"To English-language readers, the scholar Shlomo Pines (1908-1990) is undoubtedly best known for his superb English translation of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed (1963). Some may also be aware of his uncanny fluency in dozens of ancient and modern