Leo Strauss 1899 – 1973
Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish philosopher who emigrated to the United States in 1937 and spent most of his career at the University of Chicago. He devoted his work to the recovery of classical political philosophy and to the interpretation of texts that, he argued, had been written to communicate dangerous truths esoterically. His readings of Plato, Maimonides, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Machiavelli presented modern political philosophy as a deliberate departure from the ancients, and his diagnosis of the crisis of modernity centered on the loss of the question of the best regime. He shaped a school of political interpretation that has had wide and contested influence.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German-American
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Political, Continental
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Leo Strauss:
“Liberal education is the counter-poison to mass culture.”
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Attributed to Leo Strauss:
“The fundamental question is whether men can acquire that knowledge of the good without which they cannot guide their lives by the unaided efforts of their natural powers.”
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Attributed to Leo Strauss:
“Persecution gives rise to a peculiar technique of writing.”
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Attributed to Leo Strauss:
“Wisdom requires unhesitating loyalty to a decent constitution.”
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Attributed to Leo Strauss:
“Philosophy is the quest for wisdom or for knowledge regarding the most important things.”