leo strauss on tyranny


Kojève fortunately wastes no time on Xenophon’s inanities, but comes straight to the point. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.The reappearance in print of Professor Strauss’s study It has been necessary to dwell on these externals because they are in fact tightly linked with the core of the dispute. For Kojève the very existence of philosophy, and of philosophers, is a historical factum which may be brought to an end by the practical realization of those ultimate aims that make their appearance in all the great Utopias of literature. A reign of “pure terror” is unthinkable, since no one can personally terrorize more than a handful of people. While Xenophon seems to have believed that beneficent tyranny or the rule of a tyrant who listens to the counsels of the wise is, as a matter of principle, preferable to the rule of laws or to the rule of elected magistrates as such, he seems to have thought that tyranny at its best could hardly, if ever, be realized.

Socrates’ and Xenophon’s acceptance of the “tyrannical” teaching would then explain why they became suspect to their fellow-citizens, and, therefore, to a considerable extent, why Socrates was condemned to death and Xenophon was condemned to exile.It is one thing to accept the theoretical thesis concerning tyranny; it is another thing to expound it publicly. Doubtless the fact of something being the typical modern attitude does not render it immune to criticism; yet Strauss meets the challenge not at its deepest level, but at the level of alarmist forecasts concerning the terrible consequences to be apprehended from the complete and world-wide triumph of a totally secularized outlook. The reader must decide for himself whether it is feasible. This is shown most clearly by the absence of any reference to beneficent and happy tyrants who actually existed, not only from the The “tyrannical” teaching—the teaching which expounds the view that a case can be made for beneficent tyranny, and even for a beneficent tyranny which was originally established by force or fraud—has then a purely theoretical meaning. His disagreement with Kojève is particularly acute at this point because it ties in with the Hegelian depreciation of classical wisdom. At least since Hobbes and Spinoza, every major modern thinker has been an open or concealed atheist. On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero, Including the Strauss-Kojeve Correspondence, Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1961, reprinted 1991, 2000.Originally Published as On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero, Political Science Classics, 1948. Xenophon Versus Hegel On Tyranny. Left alone with his untested notions he is not distinguishable from “the lunatic who believes that he is made out of glass, or who identifies himself with God the Father or Napoleon.” In order to test the validity of his thoughts he must leave his study—or his Epicurean “garden”—and venture out into the market place, where he encounters other men, not all of them professional philosophers. Strauss may not realize it, but his pessimism could become infectious. The present moment is not perhaps a very good one for recalling that successful action can be democratic, and that even Hegelian philosophers can be democrats; but the reservation has nonetheless to be made.While Kojève and Strauss clash at practically every point, their deepest differences relate to what Strauss calls “historicism,” and what Kojève describes as the understanding of history. Unfortunately, the answer is no, and for this Strauss must take the responsibility. He will then have joined the “Republic of Letters,” whose constant sociability is at least a cure for solipsism, and “a sufficient guarantee against the danger of lunacy.” The Academy, or “Republic of Letters,” however, has the drawback that it shuts the thinker off from the political sphere, where ideas are clothed with flesh. î On Tyranny Ú Download by Leo Strauss On Tyranny Is Leo Strauss S Classic Reading Of Xenophon S Dialogue, Hiero Or Tyrannicus, In W... Home Leo Strauss and the American Right The Truth about Leo Strauss Yet the theoretical thesis by itself necessarily prevented its holders from being unqualifiedly loyal to Athenian democracy, e.g., for it prevented them from believing that democracy is simply the best political order. What is really of importance comes out in his controversy with Kojève, but before he arrives at this point the reader has to make his way through Xenophon’s However that may be historically (Strauss is not greatly interested in history), the reader is treated to a subtle distinction between “good” and “bad” tyrants. This is inexact, for Hegel would have recognized that—to cite a topical example—the destruction of Germany as a nation was the price paid by the Germans for allowing Hitler to obtain power.Kojève and Strauss enter into a fascinating dispute over the philosopher’s role in the “city.” The burden of Strauss’s original argument had been that, under a constitutional government or even under a “virtuous tyrant,” the proper role of the philosopher is to attend to the eternal verities which are perceived in contemplation. What we are in the habit of expecting is not having to bother about tyrants.

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