Abstract
The conflict between philosophy and society has its origin in the fact that philosophy cannot rationally justify the two things on which society rests: morality and religion. For Strauss these two are not separate. Morality has its source in law, and the latter cannot elicit the respect and, obedience of the many if it is not believed to have divine origin. Strauss follows the Judaic and Islamic tradition in conceiving of religion in terms of Sacred Law. In this chapter I will set aside the question of morality and focus on what Strauss believes to be at issue between philosophy and religion, reason and revelation, or as he likes to say, Athens and Jerusalem.1
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Notes
Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion trans. E. B. Speirs and J. Burdon Sanderson, 3 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1895, 1962) vol. ui, p. 54
see also discussion of this in Emil L. Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1970) p. 133.
See Arlene W. Saxonhouse, ‘The Philosopher and the Female in the Political Thought of Plato’, Political Theory, vol. 4, no. 2 (1976) pp. 195–213; see also her ’Eros and the Female in Greek Political Thought: An Interpretation of Plato’s Symposium’, Political Theory, vol. 12, no. 1 (1984) pp. 5–27.
Hannah Arendt,On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1965, 1963) p. 10.
See G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, in W. D. Hudson (ed,), The Is/Ought Problem (London: Macmillan, 1973) pp. 175–95. This excellent essay is more articulate than anything Strauss has written on the issue. John Finnis disagrees with this position, see his Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), and his The Fundamentals of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), and my review of it in Review of Politics vol. 47, no. 3 (July 1985) pp. 432–6.
Sigmund Freud, Future of an Illusion (New York: Doubleday, 1957) pp. 43, 56–7.
Ernest L. Fortin, ‘Gadamer on Strauss: An Interview’, Interpretation vol. 12, no. 1 (January 1984) pp. 1–13. Gadamer comments that, in real life, Strauss avoided confrontations with worthy opponents. He reports that he tried on many occasions to engage Strauss in a debate on matters of importance to both of them, without success (p. 13). The noteworthy exception to this is Strauss’s exchange with Alexander Kojève, published in OT.
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© 1988 Shadia B. Drury
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Drury, S.B. (1988). Philosophy’s Hidden Revolt against God. In: The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19128-4_3
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