Pelluchon Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism

Another Reason, Another Enlightenment
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4384-4968-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 319 Seiten

Reihe: SUNY series in the Thought and Legacy of Leo Strauss

Examines the German and Jewish sources of Strauss's thought and the extent to which his philosophy can shed light on the crisis of liberal democracy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pelluchon, Corine

Weitere Mitwirkende

Howse, Robert

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Translator’s Note

Introduction
The Crisis of Rationalism
Two Historical Shocks and a Threat
The Crisis of Political Philosophy
Modern Rationalism as the Destruction of Reason
The Archeology and Overcoming of Nihilism

Part I. The Dissection of the Modern Religious Consciousness

Introduction: The Perplexity of the Modern Religious Consciousness

1. Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment
The Jacobi Question
The Pantheism Debate
The Critique of Natural Religion
There Is No Such Thing as Moderate Enlightenment
The Rejection of the Kantian Solution
The Controversy over the French Revolution
The Crisis of the Tradition
The Science of Judaism and the Dialectic of Assimilation
The Discontinuity of the Ancients and Moderns
The Aporias of Zionism

2. Critique of Religion and Biblical Criticism
The Critique of Religion and Revelation in Hobbes
Epicureanism
The Interpretation of the Bible
Socinianism and the Radical Enlightment
The Need to Reconsider the Radical Enlightenment
Spinoza’s Particular Contribution to the Critique of Religion
Persecution and the Art of Writing
The Religion of the Ignorant and Weak
Biblical Criticism (Bibelswissenschaft)
The Social Function of Religion
The Universal Religion and the “Christianity” of Spinoza
The Ambiguity of Spinoza
The Limits of Secular Morality
The Enlightenment of Spinoza
The Legacy of the Critique of Religion
The Critique of Revelation Has Not Destroyed the Interest in Revelation
The Challenge of Philosophy
The Debt of the New Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment and Religious Liberalism

3. The Return to the Tradition
Rationalism and Mysticism
Allegory and Symbol
Reason and Experience
The Human Experience of the Absolute
Religion and Philosophy
Ethics and Spirituality
Redemption and Politics
The Jewish Enlightenment of Maimonides
Cohen and Strauss
From Morality to Politics
The Rational Critique of Reason

Part II. The Dissections of Modern Political Consciousness

Introduction: The Foundations of Modern Political Thought

1. The First Wave of Modernity
Machiavelli, the Originator of the Modern Enlightenment
The End of the Renaissance Humanist Ideal
Power, the Mastery of Men, and the Mastery of Nature
Philosophy, Propaganda, and Barbarism
Hobbes or the Founding of the Modern State
Political Science
Vanity and Fear
Individualism, Liberalism, and Absolutism
From War to Commerce
The Crisis of Liberalism: The Dialogue between Strauss and Schmitt
From the Rechtsstaat to the Total State in the Era of Technology
War and the Affirmation of the Political
Decisionism and Political Philosophy
Resoluteness in Heidegger

2. The Second and Third Waves of Modernity
The Rousseauian Movement
The Paradoxes of Rousseau
Society and the Rich
Revolution, and History, and the General Will
Modern Tyranny, Marxism, and Capitalism
The Dialogue between Strauss and Kojeve
Philosophy and Politics
Locke’s Liberalism
The Contemporary Form of Tyranny
Nihilism according to Nietzsche and after Nietzsche
The Repetition of Antiquity at the Peak of Modernity
The Law as Denaturing and the Religious Atheism of Nietzsche
The Radicalism of the Straussian Critique of Christianity

3. Political Philosophy as First Philosophy
The Return to Socrates
Political Philosophy as the Fulfillment of Phenomenology
The Conflict between Poetry and Philosophy
Wisdom and Moderation
The Medieval Enlightenment
The Platonism of Farabi and Maimonides
The Enlightenment of Maimonides
The Natural Conditions of Prophecy
Esoteric Teaching and the Enlightenment
The Task for Thinking and the Rebirth of Philosophy
Phenomenology and the Meaning of the Law
The Conception of Truth in Maimonides
What Is Called Thinking?
Surpassing Heidegger on His Own Ground

Conclusion: The Straussian Enlightenment
Strauss’s Radical Questioning
From Jacobi to Maimonides: Neither Kant nor Hegel
This Is Not an Ethics
Strauss’s Legacy

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Corine Pelluchon is Full Professor in Philosophy at the University of Franche-Comté in France. In addition to her book on Leo Strauss, which was awarded the François Furet Prize in 2006, she has written several other books. Robert Howse is Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law and the author of Leo Strauss: Man of Peace.