Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s

Gabriel Bartlett, Instructor of Philosophy, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, USANasser Behnegar, Associate Professor, Boston College, USAJeffrey A. Bernstein, Associate Professor, College of the Holy Cross, USATimothy W. Burns, Professor, Baylor University, USASteven Frankel, Associate Professor, Xavier University, Cincinnati, USADavid Janssens, Assistant Professor, Tilburg University, The NetherlandsHannes Kerber, Research Assistant, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, GermanyHeinrich Meier, Director of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich, also Professor, University of Munich, and permanent Visiting Professor, University of Chicago, USAThomas L. Pangle, University of Texas at Austin, USAJoshua Parens, Professor and Graduate Director of Philosophy, University of Dallas, USA

"The decade of the 1930s saw Leo Strauss make his fundamental breakthroughs in the meaning of classical political philosophy and the possibility of its recovery. This collection of essays by distinguished scholars, with newly translated works by Strauss, covers the whole complexity of Strauss's inquiry in this period, in its movement from the critical readings of the early moderns and the dialogue with Carl Schmitt, to the engagement with the medievals and Xenophon. This volume sheds invaluable new light on each of these investigations and on how they are interrelated, so that now one can much better understand how Strauss became Strauss." Richard Velkley, Celia Scott Weatherhead Professor of Philosophy, Tulane University, USA "An exhilarating collection that casts fresh and revealing light on the intellectually decisive decade in which 'Strauss became Strauss.' Indispensable for anyone with a serious interest in Strauss's thought." Susan Meld Shell, Professor of Political Science, Boston College

• Introduction; Martin D. Yaffe and Richard S. Ruderman 1. How Strauss Became Strauss; Heinrich Meier 2. Spinoza's Critique of Religion: Reading Too Literally and Not Reading Literally Enough; Steven Frank 3. The Light Shed on the Crucial Development of Strauss's Thought by his Correspondence with Gerhard Krüger; Thomas L. Pangle 4. Strauss on Hermann Cohen's 'Idealizing' Appropriation of Maimonides as a Platonist; Martin D. Yaffe 5. Strauss on the Religious and Intellectual Situation of the Present; Timothy W. Burns 6. Carl Schmitt and Strauss's Return to Pre-Modern Philosophy; Nasser Behnegar 7. Strauss, Hobbes, and the Origins of Natural Science; Timothy W. Burns 8. Strauss on Farabi, Maimonides, et al. in the 1930s; Joshua Parens 9. The Problem of the Enlightenment: Strauss, Jacobi, and the Pantheism Controversy; David Janssens 10. 'Through the Keyhole': Strauss's Rediscovery of Classical Political Philosophy in Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaemonians; Richard S. Ruderman 11. Strauss and Schleiermacher on How to Read Plato: An Introduction to 'Exoteric Teaching'; Hannes Kerber Appendix: Seven Writings by Leo Strauss A. 'Conspectivism' (1929); Translated by Anna Schmidt and Martin D. Yaffe B. 'Religious Situation of the Present' (1930); Translated by Anna Schmidt and Martin D. Yaffe C. 'The Intellectual Situation of the Present' (1932); Translated by Anna Schmidt and Martin D. Yaffe D. 'A Lost Writing of Farâbî's' (1936); Translated by Gabriel Bartlett and Martin D. Yaffe E. 'On Abravanel's Critique of Monarchy' (1937); Translated by Martin D. Yaffe F. 'Exoteric Teaching' (1939); Edited by Hannes Kerber G. Lecture Notes for 'Persecution and the Art of Writing' (1939); Edited by Hannes Kerber