This study addresses two issues. First, does corporate social performance matter in Hong Kong. Second, if yes, is it relevant to some industries more than others. To answer these questions, we develop a corporate social performance index (CSP) to measure the quality of corporate social performance of major Hong Kong listed firms. The criteria are based on the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. Using the 3-year period from 2002 to 2005, we find that firm valuation is positive and significantly associated (...) with CSP. Interestingly, this relation matters less in China related firms and firms with a concentrated ownership structure. The results also show that CSP impacts firm valuation more positively when the firm is in the service sector. We further find that CSP is positively related to the market valuation of the subsequent year. (shrink)

Leo Strauss articulates the conflict between reason and revelation as he explores Spinoza's scientific, comparative, and textual treatment of the Bible. Strauss compares Spinoza's Theologico-political Treatise and the Epistles, showing their relation to critical controversy on religion from Epicurus and Lucretius through Uriel da Costa and Isaac Peyrere to Thomas Hobbes. Strauss's autobiographical Preface, traces his dilemmas as a young liberal intellectual in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as a scholar in exile, and as a leader of (...) American philosophical thought. "[For] those interested in Strauss the political philosopher, and also those who doubt whether we have achieved the 'final solution' in respect to either the character of political science or the problem of the relation of religion to the state." -- Journal of Politics "A substantial contribution to the thinking of all those interested in the ageless problems of faith, revelation, and reason." -- Kirkus Reviews Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago. His contributions to political science include The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, The City and the Man, What is Political Philosophy?, and Liberalism Ancient and Modern. (shrink)

This book gives an account of a full spectrum of property rights and their relationship to individual liberty. It shows that a purely deontological approach to justice can deal with the most complex questions regarding the property system. Moreover, the author considers the economic, ecological, and technological complexities of our real-world property systems. The result is a more conceptually sound account of natural rights and the property system they demand. If we think that liberty should be at the centre of (...) justice, what does that mean for the property system? Economists and lawyers widely agree that a property system must be composed of many different types of property: the kind of private ownership one has over one's person and immediate possessions, as well as the kinds of common ownership we each have in our local streets, as well as many more. However, theories of property and justice have not given anything approaching an adequate account of the relationship between liberty and any other form of property other than private ownership. It is often thought that a basic commitment to liberty cannot really tell us how to arrange the major complexities of the property system, which diverge from simple private ownership. Property and Justice demonstrates how philosophical rigour coupled with interdisciplinary engagement enables us to think clearly about how to deal with real-world problems. It will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and legal theorists working on property rights and justice. (shrink)

Lockean approaches to property take it that persons can unilaterally acquire private ownership over hitherto unowned resources. Such natural law accounts of property rights are often thought to be of limited use when dealing with the complexities of natural resource use outside of the paradigm of private ownership of land for agricultural or residential development. The tragedy of the commons has been shown to be anything but an inevitability, and yet Lockeanism seems to demand that even the most robust common (...) property arrangements be converted to privatized units. This often motivates a move away from natural law in the moral analysis of property rights. I argue however that it is not the deontological nature of Lockean principles that are at fault, but rather the manner of their application. Lockean theory often exhibits a bias in favour of private property: assuming that only private property can protect one’s interest in autonomy, and therefore asserting that each individual has a power of private acquisition. Starting with a claim against interference however enables us to mould the appropriate property rights to each individual’s particular interest in autonomy. This sometimes leads to private ownership, but often leads to various forms of commons. (shrink)

The replicative bypass of lesions in DNA and the induction of mutations by agents which react with DNA to produce damaged bases can be understood on the basis of a simple kinetic model. Bypass can be analyzed by separately considering three processes: (a) addition of a base opposite a lesion, (b) a proofreading excision process, and (c) a rate limiting elongation step. Adenine nucleotides are preferentially added opposite many lesions making it possible to predict mutational specificity. Replicative bypass (translesion synthesis) (...) is dependent on modulation of proofreading exonuclease activity but loss of exonuclease activity alone is not sufficient to ensure bypass. Frameshift mutation is the result of the failure of translesion synthesis accompanied by rearrangement of the template, particularly at repetitive sites. (shrink)

The Leo Strauss transcript project -- Editor's introduction: Strauss, Nietzsche, and the history of political philosophy -- Editorial headnote -- Introduction: Nietzsche's philosophy, existentialism, and the problem of our age -- Restoring nature as ethical principle: Zarathustra, prologue -- The creative self: Zarathustra, part 1, 1-8 -- The true individual as the highest goal: Zarathustra, part 1, 9-15 -- Postulated nature and final truth: Zarathustra, part 1, 16-22 -- Truth, interpretation, and intelligibility: Zarathustra, part 2, 1-12 -- Will (...) to power and self-overcoming: Zarathustra, part 2, 15-20 -- Summary and review: fusing Plato and the creative self -- Greek philosophy and the Bible; nature and history: Zarathustra, part 2, 20-22 -- Eternal recurrence: Zarathustra, part 2, 21; part 3, 1-13 -- Survey: Nietzsche and political philosophy -- The goodness of the whole, Socratic and Heideggerian critiques: Zarathustra, part 4-12 -- Creative contemplation: Zarathustra, part 3, 13 -- Restoring the sacred and the final question: Zarathustra, part 4. (shrink)

Resumen: A mediados del siglo XX, Blanchot elabora una crítica minuciosa de algunos tópicos de Camus. Su interés, sobre todo, se centra en la renovación camusiana del cogito sintetizada en la fórmula Me rebelo, luego somos. Para Blanchot, el hombre desgraciado ha perdido el poder de decir “Yo” y, por ello, es una figura de lo impersonal que no puede ser reconducida a la persona. Sin embargo, esto no implica la renuncia a la insumisión: Blanchot recupera la figura de Sísifo (...) para mostrar que hay una rebeldía de lo impersonal que excede al hombre, marcando así el camino a la “resistencia de lo neutro” que sería reivindicada por la filosofía francesa e italiana del siglo XXI.: In the mid-20th century, Blanchot developed a thorough critique of some of Camus’ topics. His interest mainly focused on the renewal of the camusian cogito synthesized in the formula “I rebel, therefore we are.” For Blanchot, the hapless man has lost the power to say “I” and is thus a figure of the impersonal that cannot be redirected to the person. Nevertheless, this does not entail a waiver of rebelliousness: Blanchot recovered the figure of Sisyphus to show that there is a rebellion of the impersonal that exceeds man, indicating the way to the “resistance of the neutral” to be claimed by French and Italian philosophy of the 21st century. (shrink)

Leo Strauss's introductions to ten writings of Moses Mendelssohn -- Preliminary remark by Alexander Altmann -- Introduction to Pope a metaphysician! -- Introduction to "Epistle to Mr. Lessing in Leipzig" -- Introduction to Commentary on Moses Maimonides' "Logical terms" -- Introduction to Treatise on evidence in metaphysical sciences -- Introduction to Phädon -- Introduction to Treatise on the incorporeality of the human soul -- Introduction to "On a handwritten essay of Mr. de Luc's" -- Introduction to The soul -- (...) Introduction to Morning hours and to the friends of Lessing -- Introduction to God's cause, or providence vindicated. (shrink)

This essay examines whether or not absurdity is intrinsic to human life. It takes Camus’ interpretation of ‘The Absurd’ as its conceptual starting point. It traces such thought back to Schopenhauer, whose work is then critically analysed. This analysis focuses primarily on happiness and meaning. This essay accepts some of Schopenhauer’s premises, but rejects his conclusions. Instead, it considers Nietzsche’s alternatives and the role of suffering in life. It posits that suffering may help people acquire meaning and escape absurdity. It (...) then analyses the role of compassion in absurdity, in reference to Nietzsche’s work and Buddhist teachings. Lastly, it examines absurdity in relation to death, rejecting the notion that death exacerbates absurdity. This paper understands absurdity to be a natural part of the human condition, as characterised by suffering, death and an absence of meaning. It concludes that although human life is absurd by nature, it need not remain so. (shrink)

Through Blanchot’s and Derrida’s reading of Artaud’s work, this article argues that an anthropic decentering of writing enables the redefinition of a non-dialectical and nonsubstantial materialism which does justice to the impersonal and organoleptic character of art, given that it does not reduce it to the human representative horizon. The conceptual path we follow intends to point out that Blanchot and Derrida retrieve a certain logic from Artaud’s works which implies a reconfiguration of the notion of surface and concomitantly forces (...) a new ontological and aesthetic approach. The latter reveals the need to maintain a distance from the modern horizon in order to offer a space for the materials’ inorganic power without depriving it of animation and, at the same time, to vindicate the living without yielding it to human requirements. (shrink)

'At last one of the most famous generalizing works in anthropology by the field's most stimulating and controversial contemporary figure has been translated, beautifully, and with the enlightening preface of the second French edition.

Presents the early published writings of the distinguished political philosopher Leo Strauss, available here for the first time in English. “Zank places at the reader’s disposal the young Strauss’s passionate advocacy of political Zionism and his early confrontations with Spinoza, consideration of whom helped lead Strauss to formulate his teaching on ‘the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns.’” — National Review.

Quasi-realist Expressivists offer accounts of normative truth, normative facts, and normative properties which make their view apparently indistinguishable from Realist views on these subjects. This chapter explores the idea that there is still a substantial metaphysical difference between Realism and Quasi-realism, since they differ over the extent to which normative properties are metaphysically elite in David Lewis’s sense. Eliteness is an explanatory notion, and Realists need the explanatory features of eliteness to explain how different communities refer to the same property (...) with their word “ought.” While Quasi-realists can agree with Realists about which property “ought” refers to, the same resources they use to explain normative truth, reference, and facthood also explain why the referential facts are this way. Thus eliteness does not enter the explanatory picture for the Quasi-realist, and the metaphysics of obligation looks very different on the Realist and Quasi-realist views. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize a growing movement within public policy circles that self-identifies as neoliberal. The issue I take up here is the sense in which the neoliberal label signals a turn away from libertarian political philosophy. The are many import ant figures in this movement, but my focus here will be on Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center, not least because he has most prolifically written against libertarian political philosophy. Neoliberals oppose the idea that the rights that libertarianism (...) claims people have are useful guides for making the world a freer place because they forestall too much governmental/democratic political action that they purport to be necessary for increasing freedom. Wilkinson mistakenly takes libertarianism to be a set of ideal public policies for achieving a perfectly free society. If it were, he would be right to turn away from it. But placing rights to freedom at the center of their theory of justice does not commit libertarians to an all-or-nothing approach to political change. Consequences and strategy matter – particularly in a non-ideal world – without abandoning the idea that each individual has a right to freedom. In mistaking libertarian moral claims as a set of policy prescriptions, Wilkinson complains that idealistic policy prescriptions not only fail to take account of how those who disagree will respond to such policies if implemented, but also thereby undermines the justice of those policies in the first instance. Wilkinson proposes that change in the direction of freedom must go through the proper channels of actually-existing democratic legitimacy. It as this stage that Wilkinson’s project comes into direct conflict with libertarianism. Whilst libertarianism is not committed to any particular method of creating a free society under non-ideal conditions, and therefore does not rule out democratic political activism as one among many means of doing that, it cannot be committed to the permanence of democratic political authority, and this is what Wilkinson’s neoliberalism demands above all else. It turns out that Foucault’s characterization of neoliberalism long ago is still accurate to Wilkinson’s own view: that neoliberalism is not about creating a society of free individuals, it is about designing the state apparatus in ways that are inspired by the workings of free society – it is about legitimizing the chains, not breaking them. Neoliberalism is not a pragmatic alternative to libertarianism, but rather a gross misapplication of it. (shrink)

This new study provides a refreshing look at the issue of exceptions and shows that much of the problem stems from a failure to recognize at least two kinds of exception-ridden law: ceteris paribus laws and ideal laws. Billy Wheeler offers the first book-length discussion of ideal laws. The key difference between these two kinds of laws concerns the nature of the conditions that need to be satisfied and their epistemological role in the law’s formulation and discovery. He presents a (...) Humean-inspired approach that draws heavily on concepts from the information and computing sciences. Specifically, Wheeler argues that laws are best seen as algorithms for compressing empirical data and that ideal laws are needed as 'lossy compressors' for complex data. Major figures in the metaphysics of science receive special attention such as Ronald Giere, Bas van Fraassen, Nancy Cartwright, David Lewis and Marc Lange. This book is essential reading for philosophers of science and will interest metaphysicians, epistemologists and others interested in applying concepts from computing to traditional philosophical problems. (shrink)

Relying exclusively on the texts, Professor Strauss analyzes and compares every seemingly casual utterance as well as the more formal statements to recover the true Socrates and to determine the character of political philosophy. He investigates its origins, possibilities, and intention against the nonphilosophical background from which it emerged.

James Dreier (Philos Perspect 18: 23-44, 2004) states what he calls the "Problem of Creeping Minimalism": that metaethical Expressivists can accept a series of claims about meaning, under which all of the sentences that Realists can accept are consistent with Expressivism. This would allow Expressivists to accept all of the Realist's sentences, and as Dreier points out, make it difficult to say what the difference between the two views is. That Expressivists can accept these claims about meaning has been suggested (...) by Simon Blackburn on behalf of his "quasirealist". I argue against the assumption that there is a way to interpret the Realist's sentences in a way that renders them consistent with Expressivism. (shrink)

Adriaan Peperzak’s knowledge of the history of philosophy and his Continental philosophical nexus gives his Before Ethics a unique and welcome flavor. In eight essays on contemporary ethics written between 1969 and 1997, Peperzak analyzes our utilitarian, Kantian-deontological, and virtue-oriented ethical convictions in a thorough and enlightening manner.

Last year, more than seven million Americans participated in yoga or tai chi classes.Yet despite its popularity the real nature of yoga remains shrouded in mystery. A diverse range of practitioners range from white-bearded Indian mystics to celebrities like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. Positioning Yoga provides an overview of the development of yoga, from its introduction to Western audiences by the Indian Swami Vivekananda at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago to forms of modern practice. What makes (...) yoga practitioners affiliated with Swami Sivananda's Divine Life Society of Rishikesh, India unique--whether they hail from Indian, North America, or Europe? What values around the world have supported the surging popularity of yoga over the past century? This absorbing book considers how lifestyle values have made yoga a global industry and shows how this popular "lifestyle" is produced and disseminated across boundaries. (shrink)

I offer you some theories of intellectual obligations and rights (virtue Ethics): initially, RBT (a Right to Believe Truth, if something is true it follows one has a right to believe it), and, NDSM (one has no right to believe a contradiction, i.e., No right to commit Doxastic Self-Mutilation). Evidence for both below. Anthropology, Psychology, computer software, Sociology, and the neurosciences prove things about human beliefs, and History, Economics, and comparative law can provide evidence of value about theories of rights. (...) However, insofar as we have methods within Philosophy to help us formulate precise concepts of 'belief' and 'rights', methods that also help us to prove links (or absence thereof) amongst families of concepts of rights and belief, our discipline is in and of itself capable of sound reasoning about issues as puzzling as the following. Suppose a Jane who does not believe in God yet who believes she ought to so believe: Jane is undergoing doxastic moral regret (moral regret for lack of faith). We have all known such Janes and perhaps at one time or another even been one. Paradox: given RBT and NDSM, Jane as described not only does not exist, Jane cannot exist. Thus, to enrich the ways in which Philosophy need not get all its evidence from other academic disciplines, I present a brief introduction to what I call Neutral Universal Frames (NUFs). NUFs solve hard puzzles about interactions among modal concepts of belief and rights, concepts that occur in RBT, NDSM and the description of our Janes. NUFs for theories precisely articulated via any two or more modal concepts are a powerful and immensely general set of tools enabling us to define rich theories of truth ("models on frames") to test philosophical theories for internal consistency and to prove the existence of connections (or absence thereof) amongst alternative articulations of philosophical theories. NUFs thereby add to the constructive knowledge producing way Logics intersect with Philosophy of Religion. And we will soon see why Jane, be she named 'Jane' or known simply as you: cannot exist. Read on at your own risk. (shrink)

Is it possible to gain knowledge about the real world based solely on experiences in virtual reality? According to one influential theory of knowledge, you cannot. Robert Nozick's truth-tracking theory requires that, in addition to a belief being true, it must also be sensitive to the truth. Yet beliefs formed in virtual reality are not sensitive: in the nearest possible world where P is false, you would have continued to believe that P. This is problematic because there is increasing awareness (...) from philosophers and technologists that virtual reality is an important way in which we can arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world. Here I argue that a suitably modified version of Nozick's sensitivity condition is able to account for knowledge from virtual reality. (shrink)

In spite of differences the thought of Bernays, Dooyeweerd and Gödel evinces a remarkable convergence. This is particularly the case in respect of the acknowledgement of the difference between the discrete and the continuous, the foundational position of number and the fact that the idea of continuity is derived from space (geometry – Bernays). What is furthermore similar is the recognition of what is primitive (and indefinable) as well as the account of the coherence of what is unique, such as (...) when Gödel observes something quasi-spatial character of sets. It is shown that Dooyeweerd’s theory of modal aspects provides a philosophical framework that exceeds his own restrictive understanding of infinity )to the potential infinite) and at the same time makes it possible to account for key insights found in the thought of Bernays and Gödel. When Laugwitz says that discreteness rules within the sphere of the numerical, he says nothing more than what Dooyeweerd had in mind with his idea that discrete quantity, as the meaning-nucleus of the arithmetical aspect, qualifies every element within the structure of the quantitative aspect. And when Bernays says that analysis expresses the idea of the continuum in arithmetical language his mode of speech is equivalent to saying that mathematical analysis could seen as being founded upon the spatial anticipation within the modal structure of the arithmetical aspect. The view of the actual infinite (the at once infinite) in terms of an “as if” approach (Bernays), that is, as appreciated as a regulative hypothesis through which every successively infinite multiplicity of numbers could be envisaged as being giving all at once, as an infinite totality, provides a sound understanding of the at once infinite and makes it plain why every form of arithmeticism fails. Such attempts have to call upon Cantor’s proof on the non-denumerability of the real numbers – and this proof pre-supposes the use of the at once infinite which, in turn, pre-supposes the (irreducibile) spatial order of simultaneity and the patial whole-parts relation. (shrink)

Advocacy has become an accepted and integral attribute of nursing practice. Despite this adoption of advocacy, confusion remains about the precise nature of the concept and how it should be enacted in practice. The aim of this study was to investigate general nurses’ perceptions of being patient advocates in Ireland and how they enact this role. These perceptions were compared with existing theory and research on advocacy in order to contribute to the knowledge base on the subject. An inductive, qualitative (...) approach was used for this study. Three focus group interviews with a total of 20 practising nurses were conducted with a sample representing different grades in a general hospital setting. Data analysis was carried out using elements of Strauss and Corbins’ approach to concept development. The findings indicate that the principal role of the nurse advocate is to act as an intermediary between the patient and the health care environment. The results highlight that advocacy did, however, result in nurses becoming involved in conflict and confrontation with others and that it could be detrimental to nurses both professionally and personally. It was also clear that when enacting advocacy, nurses distinguished between ‘clinical advocacy’ and organizational advocacy. (shrink)

Computer models and simulations have provided enormous benefits to researchers in the natural and social sciences, as well as many areas of philosophy. However, to date, there has been little attempt to use computer models in the development and evaluation of metaphysical theories. This is a shame, as there are good reasons for believing that metaphysics could benefit just as much from this practice as other disciplines. In this paper I assess the possibilities and limitations of using computer models in (...) metaphysics. I outline the way in which different kinds of model could be useful for different areas of metaphysics, and I illustrate in more detail how agent-based models specifically could be used to model two well-known theories of laws: David Lewis’s "Best System Account" and David Armstrong's "Nomic Necessitation" view. Some logically possible processes cannot be simulated on a standard computing device. I finish by assessing how much of a threat this is to the prospect of metaphysical modeling in general. (shrink)

That many of our most successful scientific theories involve one or more idealizations poses a challenge to traditional models of theory confirmation. One popular response amongst scientific realists is the “improvement model of confirmation”: if tightening up one or more of the idealizations leads to greater predictive accuracy, then this supports the belief that the theory’s inaccuracy is a result of its idealizations and not because it is wrong. In this article I argue that the improvement model is deeply flawed (...) and that therefore idealizations continue to undermine “success-to-truth” arguments for scientific realism. (shrink)

It is not an exaggeration to say that Allan Gibbard is one of the most significant contributors to philosophy over the last five decades. Gibbard's work covers an impressive number of subfields within philosophy, including ethics, philosophy of language, decision theory, epistemology, and metaphysics. It also engages with, and makes significant contributions to, work from the natural and social sciences. This volume is not a collection of artifacts from past decades of philosophy. Instead, it is a collection of essays that (...) each make a significant contribution to contemporary work in philosophy. This reflects the fact that Gibbard's work has not only had a massive influence on past discussion in philosophy but also continues to influence new directions of philosophical research. With contributions from: Sara Aronowitz, Simon Blackburn, Paul Boghossian, David Braddon-Mitchell, Nate Charlow, Stephen Darwall, Jamie Dreier, Billy Dunaway, Melissa Fusco, Sona Ghosh, Allan Gibbard, Bill Harper, Paul Horwich, Zoë Johnson King, Tristram McPherson, Howard Nye, Lauren Olin, Caleb Perl, David Plunkett, Peter Railton, Connie Rosati, Mark Schroeder, Alex Silk, Daniel J. Singer, Brian Skyrms, and Seth Yalcin. (shrink)

The essays are based on a long and intimate familiarity with the works, but the essay on Aristotle is especially important as one of Strauss's few writings on ...

This article sketches how the debate over divine predications should be informed by the medieval Islamicate tradition. We emphasize the focus not only on the metaphysics and language of divine predications by al-Ghazali, Maimonides, and others, but also on the epistemology of divine predications. In particular, we emphasize the importance of a theory that explains not only what it takes to make a divine predication true, but also whether these predications are knowable. The epistemological element is central, because traditional views (...) of theology aim to avoid theological skepticism, which is the view that, even if there are theological truths, these truths are unknowable. We pursue this point by emphasizing the role of substantives in al-Ghazalı’s theory of divine predicates, and Maimonides’s discussion of negative predications. In closing we apply these lessons to some recent discussions of theological predication. (shrink)

At the age of eighty, one of the most influential yet reclusive intellectuals of the twentieth century consented to his first interviews in nearly thirty years. Hailed by Le Figaro as "an event," the resulting conversations between Claude Lévi-Strauss and Didier Eribon (a correspondent for Le Nouvel Observateur) reveal the great anthropologist speaking of his life and work with ease and humor. Now available in English, the conversations are rich in Lévi-Strauss's candid appraisals of some of the best-known (...) figures of the Parisian intelligentsia: surrealists André Breton and Max Ernst, with whom Lévi-Strauss shared a bohemian life in 1940s Manhattan; de Beauvoir, Sartre, and Camus, the stars of existentialism; Leiris, Foucault, Dumézil, Jacob, Lacan, and others. His long friendships with Jakobson and Merleau-Ponty are recalled, as well as his encounters with prominent figures in American anthropology: Lowie, Boas (who suddenly died in his chair beside Lévi-Strauss at a banquet at Columbia University), Benedict, Linton, Mead, and Kroeber. Lévi-Strauss speaks frankly about how circumstances and his own inclinations, after his early fieldwork in Brazil, led him to embrace theoretical work. His straightforward answers to Eribon's penetrating questions—What is a myth? What is structuralism? Are you a philosopher?—clarify his intellectual motives and the development of his research; his influential role as an administrator, including the founding of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology and of the journal L'Homme; the course of his writings, from Elementary Structures of Kinship to The Jealous Potter; and his thoughts on the conduct of anthropology today. Never before has Lévi-Strauss spoken so freely on so many aspects of his life: his initial failure to be elected to the Collège de France; his reaction to the events of May 1968; his regrets at not being a great investigative reporter or playwright; his deep identification with Wagner, Proust, and Rousseau. This is a rare opportunity to become acquainted with a great thinker in all his dimensions. (shrink)

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, _Natural Right and History_ remains as controversial and essential as ever. "Strauss... makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find (...) ourselves... [and] brings to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind."—John H. Hallowell, _American Political Science Review_ Leo Strauss was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

"Every word, like a sacred object, has its place. No _précis_ is possible. This extraordinary book must be read."—Edmund Carpenter, _New York Times Book Review _ "No outline is possible; I can only say that reading this book is a most exciting intellectual exercise in which dialectic, wit, and imagination combine to stimulate and provoke at every page."—Edmund Leach, _Man _ "Lévi-Strauss's books are tough: very scholarly, very dense, very rapid in argument. But once you have mastered him, human (...) history can never be the same, nor indeed can one's view of contemporary society. And his latest book, _The Savage Mind_, is his most comprehensive and certainly his most profound. Everyone interested in the history of ideas _must_ read it; everyone interested in human institutions _should _read it."—J. H. Plumb, _Saturday Review_ "A constantly stimulating, informative and suggestive intellectual challenge."—Geoffrey Gorer, _The Observer_, London. (shrink)

Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy . "We are in sympathy," he writes, "with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it (...) is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech." This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors. (shrink)

The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, "Leo Strauss On Plato's "Symposium"" offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did.

The problem of the transcendental has haunted philosophy for some time now. How can we think that which is external to our thought without by that token assimilating it to our thought? In other words, how can we speak of the outside without by that very gesture bringing it inside? While this conversation spun its complex tapestry over centuries, there developed alongside various attempts to dismiss or deflate the problem altogether. The most recent manifestation of this deflationary tendency is the (...) “speculative materialism” movement, represented with most clarity by Quentin Meillassoux in his 2006 work After Finitude. He attempts here to restore “the Great Outdoors” to a philosophical tradition mired in what he calls “correlationism,” which he characterizes as a kind of narcissism. So the present conjuncture seems to offer us a choice between the subjective transcendental cellar and the wilderness of speculative materialism. In this essay, we articulate an alternative to this choice rooted in readings of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Our intent here is not to compare or contrast their bodies of work as wholes, but to trace a distinct philosophical maneuver that is not only common to the two thinkers but reveals a link between them. Rather than annulling the transcendental question, these figures encourage us to reverse it, and ask instead “how can we think the inside without by that very token bringing it outside?” This provides us with a response to the problem of philosophy’s narcissism without recourse to Meillassoux’s “speculative” solution.Le problème du transcendantal a hanté la philosophie depuis un bon moment à présent. Comment pouvons-nous penser ce qui est externe à notre pensée sans l’assimiler par là même à notre pensée? En d’autres termes, comment parler du dehors sans l’amener par ce geste même à l’intérieur? Alors que ce débat a tissé sa toile complexe à travers les siècles, plusieurs tentatives se sont développées pour rejeter ou désamorcer le problème. La manifestation la plus récente de cette dernière tendance est le mouvement du « matérialisme spéculatif » représenté avec le plus de clarté par Quentin Meillassoux dans son oeuvre de 2006, Après la finitude. Il tente dans ce livre de restaurer le « Grand Dehors » dans une tradition philosophique enlisée dans ce qu’il appelle « corrélationnisme », qu’il caractérise comme une forme de narcissisme. Ainsi, la conjoncture actuelle semble donner le choix entre une cave transcendantale subjective et la nature sauvage du matérialisme spéculatif. Dans cet essai, nous articulons une alternative enracinée dans des lectures de Merleau-Ponty et de Deleuze. Notre intention n’est pas de comparer ou de contraster leurs oeuvres prises globalement, mais de tracer une manoeuvre philosophique distincte qui est non seulement commune aux deux penseurs, mais qui révèle un lien entre eux. Plutôt que d’annuler la question transcendantale, ces figures nous encouragent à la renverser et à poser la question à la place : comment pouvons-nous penser l’intérieur sans l’amener par là même vers le dehors? Cela nous fournit une réponse au problème du narcissisme de la philosophie sans recourir à la solution « spéculative » de Meillassoux.Il problema del trascendentale occupa la filosofia ormai da tempo. Come possiamo afferrare con il pensiero qualcosa di esterno al nostro pensiero, senza con questo assimilarlo a esso? In altri termini, come possiamo parlare dell’esterno senza per ciò stesso portarlo all’interno? Mentre questa riflessione intrecciava le proprie complesse fila lungo i secoli, prendevano forma per via collaterale diversi tentativi di sopprimere o ridimensionare il problema che l’aveva originata. La manifestazione più recente di questa tendenza coincide con il movimento del “materialismo speculativo”, rappresentato nel modo più emblematico da Quentin Meillassoux con il suo saggio Après la finitude, pubblicato nel 2006. In questo saggio, l’autore tenta di restituire “il Grande Fuori” a una tradizione filosofica invischiata in quello che egli definisce “correlazionismo” e che descrive come una sorta di narcisismo. La situazione attuale sembra così porci di fronte all’alternativa tra la chiusura angusta del trascendentale soggettivo e l’apertura incontrollata del materialismo speculativo. In questo articolo, sviluppiamo una proposta alternativa basata sulla lettura di Merleau-Ponty e di Deleuze. Il nostro intento non è quello di confrontare o contrapporre le opere dei due autori nel loro complesso, ma quello di evidenziare una precisa mossa filosofica che non solo li accomuna, ma li rivela come effettivamente connessi. Piuttosto che annullare l’interrogativo trascendentale, questi autori ci invitano a capovolgerlo, domandandosi invece: “Come possiamo afferrare con il pensiero l’interno senza per ciò stesso portarlo all’esterno?”. Questa mossa fornisce una risposta al problema del narcisismo della filosofia eludendo il ricorso alla soluzione “speculativa” di Meillassoux. (shrink)

Les époques d'instabilité et de désordre politique coïncident généralement avec un développement de la science politique. En atteste une fois de plus la Correspondance qu'entretinrent ces " deux géants de la science politique ", Leo Strauss et Eric Voegelin, tous deux contraints par la révolution national-socialiste à s'exiler aux Etats-Unis. Dans la cinquantaine de lettres échangées, dont le cœur se constitue au cours des années 1942-1953, le lecteur assiste à la gestation des deux grands théoriciens politiques de ce début (...) de siècle. L'échange de vues concernant la restauration du niveau de questionnement platonicoaristotélicien, leur lecture divergente des dialogues de Platon, la critique virulente qu'adresse Voegelin à l'egologie husserlienne ainsi qu'à sa réduction de l'Humanité incarnée par l'homme occidental ou encore à son interprétation de l'histoire à travers le telos qui se révèle en elle, la divergence d'appréciation concernant la tyrannie moderne, enfin leurs critiques réciproques de l'existentialisme retiendront particulièrement l'attention. Mais le désaccord irréductible entre les deux penseurs porte bien évidemment sur le rôle de la foi et de la philosophie politique, ainsi qu'en témoigne le sous-titre de cette Correspondance, désaccord dont le lecteur trouvera témoignage dans les quatre essais, datant de la période de la maturité des deux auteurs, dont trois inédits, qui composent la seconde partie de ce volume. La troisième partie rassemble huit essais d'éminents spécialistes de l'un ou l'autre penseur, commentant les problèmes soulevés dans la Correspondance et, plus généralement dans l'œuvre des deux auteurs. (shrink)