Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher and classicist who became an expert on political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later went to the United States. He spent most of his time as a teacher of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught students and put into print 15 books.The Leo Strauss Center website bio section

He was particularly concerned with the idea of whether freedom and excellence could go together,Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker, p. 3 but his ideas were criticised by Nicholas Xenos as wanting to go back to an era of fascism.Nicholas Xenos, "Leo Strauss and the Rhetoric of the War on Terror,"  Logosjournal.com

He was against the idea of a world state as he thought it would lead to tyranny.''On Tyranny, p. 143

Recent research has criticized his ideas in Persecution and the Art of Writing. Strauss argues that writing in a secretive way is needed to protect revolutionary ideas from the general public. But the evidence shows that most people during the time when Strauss's philosophers lived were illiterate, and only a few could understand complicated philosophical works. This contradicts Strauss's hypothesis. Moreover, the complexity of language make it unnecessary to devise additional ways, as Strauss suggests, to hide messages, as language itself can have multiple interpretations. Therefore, it is important to reassess these theories based on the evidence and insights, which question Strauss's argument.

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Category:1899 births
Category:1973 deaths
Category:20th-century American philosophers
Category:American political scientists
Category:Continental philosophers
Category:German military personnel of World War I
Category:20th-century German philosophers
Category:Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty
Category:Jewish American academics
Category:Jewish American scientists
Category:Jewish American writers
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Category:Jewish German writers
Category:Jewish philosophers
Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States
Category:Refugees from Nazism
Category:Writers from Hesse