Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism : Another Reason, Another Enlightenment.

Intro -- Contents -- 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 -- Chapter 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 -- Chapter 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 Enlightenment -- 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 -- Chapter 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 -- Chapter 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 -- Chapter 2: The Second and Third Waves of Modernity -- The Rousseauian Moment -- The Paradoxes of Rousseau -- Society and the Rich -- Revolution, 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 -- Chapter 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.

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.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.