Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher and historian of philosophy whose work greatly influenced twentieth-century political theory in the United States and the study of classical political thought. He is known best for his interpretation of ancient and medieval philosophy, his account of classical natural right, and his claim that philosophers often wrote esoterically, presenting different teachings to general and specialist readers. Strauss argued that the modern turn in philosophy, beginning with Niccolò Machiavelli and culminating in historicism and relativism, marked a decisive break with the classical understanding of politics and the good life. His work sought to recover the questions and methods of ancient political philosophy as a corrective to the perceived crisis of modern thought.
Born in Germany to Jewish parents, he emigrated to the United States in 1937, going on to hold positions at the New School for Social Research and later at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1949 to 1969. His seminars shaped several generations of political theorists, many of whom became influential scholars in their own right at major American universities. Strauss's students and interlocutors played significant roles in the development of political philosophy in the postwar United States, particularly in the neoconservative movement; his ideas have been taken up and debated within fields including political theory, classics, intellectual history, and religious studies. His major works include Natural Right and History (1953), Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), The City and Man (1964), and On Tyranny (1948). Strauss's work has also been the subject of debate, including disputes over his interpretations of ancient texts and discussions of the political influence of some of his students, though these issues remain contested within academic scholarship.
Strauss's scholarship ranges from studies of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon to examinations of Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophical traditions, particularly Al-Farabi and Maimonides. Central to his writings is the tension between reason and revelation, the nature of political prudence, and the relationship between philosophy and political authority. His methodological emphasis on close textual reading, the pedagogical value of classical texts, and the critique of modernity formed the basis of what came to be known as "Straussian" approaches to political theory.
Biography Early life and education Leo Strauss was born on September 20, 1899, in the small town of Kirchhain in Hesse-Nassau, a province of the Kingdom of Prussia (part of the German Empire), to Jennie Strauss (née David) and Hugo Strauss. According to Allan Bloom's 1974 obituary in Political Theory, Strauss "was raised as an Orthodox Jew", but the family does not appear to have completely embraced Orthodox practice.Joachim Lüders and Ariane Wehner, Mittelhessen – eine Heimat für Juden? Das Schicksal der Familie Strauss aus Kirchhain (Central Hesse – a Homeland for Jews? The Fate of the Strauss Family from Kirchhain) 1989. Strauss himself noted that he came from a "conservative, even orthodox Jewish home", but one which knew little about Judaism except strict adherence to ceremonial laws. His father and uncle operated a farm supply and livestock business that they inherited from their father, Meyer (1835–1919), a leading member of the local Jewish community.In "A Giving of Accounts", published in The College 22 (1) and later reprinted in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity.
After attending the Kirchhain Volksschule and the Protestant Rektoratsschule, Leo Strauss was enrolled at the Gymnasium Philippinum (affiliated with the University of Marburg) in nearby Marburg (from which Johannes Althusius and Carl Joachim Friedrich also graduated) in 1912, graduating in 1917. He boarded with the Marburg cantor Strauss (no relation), whose 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 (Das Erkenntnisproblem in der philosophischen Lehre Fr. H. Jacobis), was supervised by Ernst Cassirer. He also attended courses at the Universities of Freiburg and Marburg, including some taught by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Strauss joined a Jewish fraternity and worked for the German Zionist movement, which introduced him to various German Jewish intellectuals, such as Norbert Elias, Leo Löwenthal, Hannah Arendt, and Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was and remained an admirer of Strauss and his work throughout his life. Jewish philosophy and the crisis of modernity (SUNY 1997), Leo Strauss as a Modern Jewish thinker, Kenneth Hart Green, Leo Strauss, page 55Scholem, Gershom. 1981. Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship. Trans. Harry Zohn, p. 201The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932–40, New York 1989, pp. 155–58
Strauss's closest friend was Jacob Klein but he also was intellectually engaged with Gerhard Krüger—and also Karl Löwith, Julius Guttmann, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Franz Rosenzweig (to whom Strauss dedicated his first book), as well as Gershom Scholem, Alexander Altmann, and the Arabist Paul Kraus, who married Strauss's sister Bettina (Strauss and his wife later adopted Paul and Bettina Kraus's child when both parents died in the Middle East). With several of these friends, Strauss carried on vigorous epistolary exchanges later in life, many of which are published in the Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Writings), some of which are in translation from the German. Strauss had also been engaged in a discourse with Carl Schmitt. However, after Strauss left Germany, he broke off the discourse when Schmitt failed to respond to his letters.
Career After receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1932, Strauss left his position at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin for Paris. He returned to Germany only once, for a few short days, twenty 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, Thomas, and later his sister's child, Jenny Strauss Clay (later a professor of classics at the University of Virginia); he and Miriam had no biological children of their own. At his death, he was survived by Thomas, Jenny Strauss Clay, and three grandchildren. Strauss became a lifelong friend of Alexandre Kojève and was on friendly terms with Raymond Aron and Étienne Gilson. Because of the Nazis' rise to power, he chose not to return to his native country. Strauss found shelter, after some vicissitudes, in England, where, in 1935, he gained temporary employment at the University of Cambridge with the help of his in-law David Daube, who was affiliated with Gonville and Caius College. While in England, he became a close friend of R. H. Tawney and was on less friendly terms with Isaiah Berlin.Leo Strauss And the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher p. 87
Unable to find permanent employment in England, Strauss moved to the United States in 1937, under the patronage of Harold Laski, who made introductions and helped him obtain a brief lectureship. After a short stint as a research fellow in the Department of History at Columbia University, Strauss secured a position at The New School, where, between 1938 and 1948, he worked in the political science faculty and also held adjunct positions. In 1939, he served for a short term as a visiting professor at Hamilton College. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944 and, in 1949, became a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, holding the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professorship until he left in 1969.
In 1953, Strauss coined the phrase reductio ad Hitlerum, a play on reductio ad absurdum, suggesting that comparing an argument to one of Hitler's, or "playing the Nazi card", is often a fallacy of irrelevance.Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965 , p. 42.
In 1954, he met Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer in Heidelberg and delivered a public speech on Socrates. He had received a call for a temporary lectureship in Hamburg in 1965 (which he declined for health reasons). He received and accepted an honorary doctorate from the University of Hamburg and the German Order of Merit via the German representative in Chicago. In 1969, Strauss 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 from pneumonia in 1973.Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modernity preface p. 6. He was buried in Annapolis Hebrew Cemetery, with his wife Miriam Bernsohn Strauss, who died in 1985. Psalm 114 was read in the funeral service at the request of family and friends.
Thought Strauss's thought can be characterized by two main themes: the critique of modernity and the recovery of classical political philosophy. He argued that modernity, which emerged among the 15th century Italian city states particularly in the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, was a radical break from the tradition of Western civilization, and that it led to a crisis of nihilism, relativism, historicism, and scientism. He claimed that modern political and social sciences, which were based on empirical observation and rational analysis, failed to grasp the essential questions of human nature, morality, and justice, and that they reduced human beings to mere objects of manipulation and calculation. He also criticized modern liberalism, which he saw as a product of modernity, for lacking moral and spiritual foundations and for its tendency to undermine the authority of religion, tradition, and natural law.Leora Batnitzky, Leo Strauss, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 9 April 2021.Shadia Drury (1998). Strauss, Leo (1899–1973). In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. Retrieved 30 Dec. 2023. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-S092-1
To overcome the crisis of modernity, Strauss proposed a return to the classical political philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the medieval thinkers, who he believed had a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of human nature and society. He advocated a careful and respectful reading of the classical texts, arguing that their authors wrote in an esoteric manner, which he called "the art of writing". He suggested that the classical authors hid their true teachings behind a surface layer of conventional opinions to avoid persecution and to educate only the few capable of grasping them, and that they engaged in dialogue with one another across the ages. Strauss called this dialogue "the great conversation", and invited his readers to join it.
Strauss's interpretation of classical political philosophy was influenced by his Jewish background and his engagement with medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, especially the works of Al-Farabi and Maimonides. He argued that these philosophers, who lived under the rule of Islam, faced challenges similar to those of the ancient Greeks. He also claimed that these philosophers, who were both faithful to their revealed religions and loyal to the rational pursuit of philosophy, offered a model of how to reconcile reason and revelation, philosophy and theology, Athens and Jerusalem.
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