Leo Strauss's connection with Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt suggests a troubling proximity to National Socialism but a serious critique of Strauss must begin with F. H. Jacobi. While writing his dissertation on this apparently Christian opponent of the Enlightenment, Strauss discovered the tactical principles that would characterize his lifework: writing between the lines, a faith-based critique of rationalism, the deliberate secularization of religious language for irreligious purposes, and an "all or nothing" antagonism to middling solutions. Especially the latter is distinctive of his...
Leo Strauss's connection with Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt suggests a troubling proximity to National Socialism but a serious critique of Strauss...
When careful consideration is given to Nietzsche's critique of Platonism and to what he wrote about Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and to Germany's place in "international relations" (die Groe Politik), the philosopher's carefully cultivated "pose of untimeliness" is revealed to be an imposture. As William H. F. Altman demonstrates, Nietzsche should be recognized as the paradigmatic philosopher of the Second Reich, the short-lived and equally complex German Empire that vanished in World War One. Since Nietzsche is a brilliant stylist whose seemingly disconnected aphorisms have made him notoriously...
When careful consideration is given to Nietzsche's critique of Platonism and to what he wrote about Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and to Germany's place i...