Leo Strauss Essays

  • Leo Strauss and Reinhold Niebuhr

    2119 Words  | 5 Pages

    Leo Strauss and Reinhold Niebuhr represent two giants of twentieth century political philosophy. The Jewish classicist and Christian theologian contemporaries articulated profound thoughts on political philosophy and earned recognition for their work on the subject of international relations. Indeed, their prominence within the field of international relations continues into modern times and contemporary debates. The Bush administration’s Straussian policy and President Obama’s favoring of Niebuhrian

  • Machiavelli’s The Prince as a Modern Political Guidebook

    2080 Words  | 5 Pages

    a product of the Italian Renaissance in that it attempts to explain how things really are rather than how they are perceived. WORKS  CITED Machiavelli, Niccolo.  The Prince.  Trans.  Christian E. Detmold.  New York:  Airmont, 1965. Strauss, Leo.  "Machiavelli the Immoralist."  The Prince:  A Norton Critical Edition.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1977.  180-185.

  • The Concept Of Justice In Plato's Republic

    1333 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kephalos defines justice as returning what one has received (Ten Essays, Leo Strauss, page 169). On the other hand, Kaphalos’ son, Polemarchus, states that justice is found in harming one’s enemies and helping ones’ friends (Republic, 332D). The final opinion in the discussion is given by Thrasymachus as he says: “justice is nothing

  • Justice Exemplified by Plato and Thucydides

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato's Book I of The Republics presents three fundamental views on justice which are exemplified in Thucydides' On Justice, Power and Human Nature. Justice is illustrated as speaking the paying one's debts, helping one's friends and harming one's enemies, and the advantage of the stronger. In both their works, Plato and Thucydides write of the view that justice is honoring one's debts. In The Republics, Cephalus asserts that justice is "the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another

  • Critical Analysis Of Plato's Republic

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of the many important texts in our world’s history, Plato’s Republic is among the best of them. This text has been used countless times and for countless reasons. Jon Dorbolo states, “The Republic is considered by many to be Plato’s masterwork. It certainly is one of the most important texts of political theory. In the Republic, Plato reasons his way to a description of the perfect political system.” So many people used the Republic when making important political decisions and writing important

  • The Importance of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Importance of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic Dr. Malters’s comments: This student does two things quite remarkable for an undergraduate student. In his compact essay, not only does he display an in-depth understanding of complex perspectives on justice put forth by the protagonist Socrates, he deftly explains how Plato has artfully made rude objections by a seemingly minor character early in the dialogue function as a structuring device for nearly all the important ideas examined thereafter

  • Plato's Vision of the Ideal State

    1275 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato's Vision Of The Ideal State As Presented In The Republic The concept of questioning meaning of life, the universe and everything has become debauched in modern society. But there is an exigency for and a value in the procedure of reasoning through aspects of our experience beginning with moral principles to existence. It can, for ordinary peoples as much as for professional philosophers, enlivening, vivid, and developmental. Plato is one of the most influential thinkers in human history. His

  • An Analysis of Plato's Republic

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    Explain the passage’s meaning in context. Societies hold value in the respect and virtuous abilities over others often times put justice on a pedestal and hold tight to it. In the eyes of Socrates is Plato’s Republic, Book VI he states that “In a suitable one [constitution], his [a philosopher's] own growth will be fuller and he will save the community as well as himself” (Plato “Republic”, p. 177, 497a). When you break it down this quote means when abiding by the laws held by the community each

  • Plato's The Republic and Aristophanes The Birds

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato's The Republic and Aristophanes The Birds It is evident, by Plato's The Republic and Aristophanes The Bird's, that one's vision of an ideal state is not the same mystical utopia. Plato's Republic is an well-ordered society that emphasizes the development of the community, which leads to its people believing in this philosophy. Cloudcuckooland, the idea of two lazy Athenians, is an unorganized society that lacks the substance to make it a workable society. I would much rather live in the

  • Comparing Human Nature In Hobbes And Machiavelli

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    Human Nature in Hobbes and Machiavelli and the use of a Sovereign for Peace or Power The philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli, both speak of humans in their natural state, and how they are self-centred and greedy. Hobbes, in his work Leviathan, goes on to show that in order to control human nature, society must elect for a sovereign to rule and serve as the head, to represent the entire population. In contrast, Machiavelli in The Prince, shows how even with the sovereign in place,

  • Comparing Machiavelli And Immanuel Kant

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    Today, everyone is subject to criticism and that is because we are being scrutinized in everything that we do. However, the one that takes most of the heat are the ones that are in charge. In the reading selections by Niccolo Machiavelli and Immanuel Kant, these two details on how an ideal ruler should lead and behave. To begin with, Machiavelli explains that all men, especially princes have different qualities and that these characteristics are how the outsiders judge them. “Some, for example

  • Cassirer, Nietzsche and Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cassirer, Nietzsche and Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince When the word "Renaissance" is mentioned, an image of love for antiquity learning and fine arts usually springs to one's mind. Yet this perception, however legitimate it may be in many areas of Renaissance human achievements, shatters in the face of Niccolò Machiavelli's masterpiece The Prince. Unlike his contemporary Baldassare Castiglione who exemplified subtlety, Machiavelli was ruthlessly practical, nonchalantly callous, and admirably

  • The Hellenistic Homemaker

    2010 Words  | 5 Pages

    gained by examination of the speeches of two citizens about their wives and their homes. Through both texts, it becomes apparent that the citizen’s value of his wife is based upon his wife’s ability as an “oikonomikos” or “skilled household manager” (Strauss, 3). It is through filling this role as her husband’s housekeeper that an Athenian woman experienced a loss of personal freedom and found herself trapped within a marriage in which she had little contact or much in common with her husband. A woman’s

  • Discours Des Droits De L'homme Au Sens D'un Retour A Aristote

    3023 Words  | 7 Pages

    ABSTRACT: It is interesting to see Aristotle's observation of natural law in order to renew the ideal of law against the Marxist theory of society, to renounce the normative theory of the nation, and to study the liberal theory of information. All this allows us to expect the realization of social justice and human rights from the institutionalization of markets (agora) and the precondition of the boundary of the general culture (paideia), namely the communitarian ethics and the moral reformation

  • Program Music: Richard Strausss "Don Quixote"

    1375 Words  | 3 Pages

    Quixote is one of insanity and delusion that Strauss was able to depict very well. Don Quixote was a middle aged man that read too many books about knights and their heroic deeds. This is shown by three different themes given to show Don’s dreams of being a knight. Over time, he read so many books and dreamt of rescuing his ideal woman named Dulcinea from a dragon so many times that his mind was unable to separate his real life from his fantasy world. Strauss chose to depict Dulcinea with a beautiful

  • Astrology And Pseudoscience

    931 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people use Astrology as a way to generate expectations about future events in their lives or to explain personal traits about themselves. Astrology has influenced numerous people for centuries. It is considered pseudoscience because there are no scientific facts that will support any of the outcomes or results. “True science begins with a hypothesis, which is then tested through various carefully controlled experiments with physical quantities that can be measured and recorded, and depending

  • Essay On Zodiac Signs

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    Zodiac signs don’t only have to do with the place of the planet it also has to do with the time of the month , your birth , this also plays an important role in Zodiac signs .There are 12 Zodiac signs these signs are Aries ,Taurus,Gemini,Cancer,Leo,Virgo Libra, Scorpio,Sagittarius, Capricorn ,Aquarius and Pisces in that order , you can find out yours just by knowing your birthday then looking it up. The reason for having zodiac signs is to explain your personality using the section your planets

  • Blue Jeans, the Ultimate American Icon

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    jeans are revered is to first learn about their history. The history of blue jeans began with Levi Strauss. In 1847 Levi Strauss emigrated from Bavaria, now part of southern Germany, to New York. Once news of the Gold Rush reached New York, Levi Strauss packed up his belongings and headed west. In 1853, Levi Strauss reached San Francisco California, where he officially became an American citizen. Strauss was not there to search for gold. He moved west to open a branch of the family’s dry good business

  • Durkheim and Levi-Strauss and Thought

    2413 Words  | 5 Pages

    harvesting of intellectual resources to formulate a theory of the western self. In the case of the sensitive but scientific anthropologist, the mind of the other is a key to understanding the universal nature of the human mind. Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss consider ‘primitive thought’ to be rooted in certain modes of classification which they consider to be precursors and parallels, respectively, to ‘modern’ Euro-American scientific rationality. They take this connection between modes of classification

  • Anthropological Feminism In Jane Campion's The Piano

    4530 Words  | 10 Pages

    Anthropological Feminism in The Piano   There is a moment in The Piano when the crazed husband takes an axe and chops off his wife's finger. We do not see the awful blow, but both times I watched the film the audience gasped and a few women hurried from the theater. It is a disturbing but crucial scene, the culmination of a sado-masochistic screenplay which has been condemned by some as harmful to women and welcomed by others as an important feminist work. Critics have been more nearly unanimous